Calorie Myths, Supporting Healthy Metabolism, and Mindful Eating
Please note that I am not a medical doctor or medical know-it-all. Everybody is different, so please always check with your doctor before trying anything crazy and new.
At times it can be hard to tease apart the physical cues of hunger from more complex psychological reasons you may be eating. Sometimes we eat because we are bored, stressed, depressed or overwhelmed. Or we may completely lose our appetite because of anxiety or severe digestive conditions, such as IBS or Crohn’s disease. There can be multiple reasons why we can get disconnected from our natural hunger and satiety signals, and this can make us feel out of control and never fully satisfied. At the same time there’s so much confusing information out there that it has become challenging to find the truth and ignore noise.
What can we do to reconnect with our natural hunger signals and find balance again? The number one thing is to learn to manage blood sugar and stress levels so that we can keep our hormones - especially our insulin and cortisol levels - within a healthy range. These hormonal imbalances mess up with our hunger signals and metabolism. Our hormones are always talking and paying attention to one another: if you have one hormone out of balance, there’s a good chance you have multiple hormones out of balance. Chronically elevated insulin can mess up with other hormones like with our sex hormones. For instance, constantly elevated insulin levels can lead to estrogen dominance in women, which can cause heavy periods, fibroids, and increase the risk of cancer. Consequently, it is essential to choose a holistic approach to fix the root cause of your symptoms and not just treat the symptoms with pills.
The second and equally important thing is to learn to listen to your own body and nourish it accordingly, whether you call it mindful eating, intuitive eating or something else. When our physical bodies are fully nourished and in balance, we feel mentally and emotionally more balanced as well. This is what I believe in: when you eat real whole foods, your metabolism can heal itself by itself and your weight will naturally find its natural set point range over time.
About Metabolism and Blood Sugar
One of the biggest misconception in the health and nutrition field is the so called “Calories in, Calories out” model. Unfortunately, many public health authorities still firmly believe in it. Yet, anyone who has ever tried to gain or lose weight knows that out bodies are not engines, and counting calories and following strict dietary plans do not often lead to a desired result - at least in the long term. In his book, The Obesity Code, Dr. Jason Fung, MD gives multiple examples what goes wrong with the Calorie counting model and explains how our metabolism is regulated. The book is great to read to better understand why so many people have hard time to keep their weight within a healthy range and often end up going through miserable yo-yo cycles year after year.
Our weight gain is controlled hormonally, primarily by insulin, and our insulin levels are affected by what we eat and how often we eat. Many have this weird fear around eating until they are full but are also scared to not eat because most our health authorities tell us to eat several times a day smaller meals and snack between to keep blood sugar stable and keep our metabolism strong. Clearly, this is not working well. Not only are people struggling with their weight but also all other severe health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and various autoimmune diseases are going through the roof. The worst thing you can eat are refined carbohydrates (sugar and white flour) that cause your pancreas to secrete high amounts of insulin and store that (excess) sugar as fat. If you are constantly eating high-sugar foods, your insulin levels can never go down and your body stays in “fat storage” mode irrespective of the calories you eat. All foods will stimulate insulin response to some degree. It’s that constant eating that makes both our physical bodies as well as our intuition suffer.
Constant snacking causes extra stress for your digestive system. Your GI tract can only digest or cleanse - it cannot do both at the same time. The cleansing wave, known as Migrating Motor Complex, in the stomach and small intestine typically takes something between two to four hours, depending on the individual. This cleansing wave is highly important for every body so that we can get toxins and pathogens properly out of our system, and restore and renew our cells. Grazing is not good for your teeth either. It can lead to enamel damage and tooth decay - not pretty.
I want to emphasise that stabile blood sugar levels are important for all of us and not just for people who want to lose or manage their weight. No one wants feel light-headed and have brain fog. We need plenty of energy for optimal brain function and to have stamina throughout the day so that we can achieve our goals. Focusing too much on body weight can be problematic too. For example, Body Mass Index (BMI) does not tell the truth about a person’s health status because it does not evaluate our body composition or other important health indicators. There are many people who are not overweight - as defined by BMI - but are still metabolically unhealthy. And similarly, there are people who are “overweight” (defined by BMI) but metabolically healthy.
Calories in, Calories Out
When it comes the “Calories in, Calories out” -theory, it has its roots in the First Law of Thermodynamics, and it is based on the idea that fat accumulation equals calories in minus calories out. However, the human body is not a computer. Our bodies are uniquely beautiful with complex biological functions and chemical reactions. Trying to simplify complex nature into a simple formula sounds ridiculous and yes, that’s exactly what it is. And let’s face it: it’s impossible to count every single calorie precisely (that you consume or burn) unless you live in a laboratory. How can you even know how much energy your body is able to absorb from the foods you eat?
One significant and complex thing we often forget is called Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), which is the amount of energy (calories) your body burns just to stay alive while you are at rest. The overwhelming majority of our total energy expenditure is not exercise but our BMR. BMR includes vital functions such as breathing, brain activity, circulation, keeping your heart pumping, digestion, etc. Your BMR does not include exercise. If you have a high metabolism, your body burns energy more efficiently, and you won’t gain weight easily. Whereas if it’s lower, you tend to gain weight more easily. Our BMR is not fixed: it can go up or down by 50% depending on your caloric intake as well as other factors such as breathing and total energy expenditure.
This is the reason why calorie-restriction diets stop working. When you cut calories and chronically undereat, your BMR begins to slow down and your vital organ systems start to slow down their processes. You start to feel cold, tired, hungry and in the long term start to have all kinds of health issues, such as hair loss, skin issues, low thyroid, bone loss, and so on. Similarly, this helps to explain why trying to gain weight is often equally challenging. When you eat more than what your body needs for fuel, the opposite tends to happen: you start feeling very hot because everything in your body speeds up. When you have too much energy coming in you may feel over-energitic, restless and focusing on anything can become a mission impossible. Of course, if you eat way-way too much you may feel sluggish and tired because digesting food is a very energy-intensive process. There’s this thing called set point weight range where our individual bodies try to stay and keep homeostasis. That’s your individual healthy body weight where your body is happy and therefore, your body will always do its best to stay there.
Calories Differ
Another important thing to understand is that our body’s hormonal and metabolic responses to two food items containing equal calories can be very different depending on the composition of foods: 200 calories of almonds is not the same as 200 calories of soda. Yes, a calorie is a calorie on paper, but not in your body! Therefore the fattening effect of these foods also differs.
Extra Stressor
There are a few other reasons why calorie counting may not be the best idea unless it teaches you temporarily to eat enough or you are running a research project in a laboratory. Strict calorie counting can easily make people focus on numbers rather than the quality of the food that they are eating because it’s often easier to count the numbers from processed and packaged foods that come with food labels. On top of that, counting is time consuming and can become stressful and in more severe cases lead to an addiction - who wants that?! We all know yo-yo dieters who have been obsessed with measuring and weighing everything and anything. Animals don’t count calories and in nature you don’t see obese animals and they look pretty damn good throughout their lives.
Fluctuating Energy Needs
Our energy needs can vary depending on the season (I have noticed I need to eat so much more during the summer to thrive than during winter months! Something with sun I guess…!?), hormonal changes, activity level, and so. For instance, women tend to need more calories on the second half of their cycle. Therefore, learning to listen to your own body is super important and life changing. If you are a female and want to learn to live, nourish and move in harmony with your infradian rhythm (yes, our sacred feminine cycle), I highly recommend checking out the books from Alisa Vitti and Dr. Jolene Brighten. The health and nutritional science have long been male-biased, and sex differences - our genetic and hormonal differences - haven’t often been taken into account in most studies. It hasn’t been until recently that women are becoming recognised in the research.
How to Reach Satiety
You know the feeling when you have just eaten a big bowl of pasta and you still feel kind of hungry. The key here is to understand that your appetite is hormonally driven and therefore, hormonal imbalances are what we need to fix. Calorie counting or bariatric surgeries are not going to fix this issue. Without fat and protein our satiety hormones aren’t activated. Our main satiety hormones are peptide YY (responds primarily to protein) and cholecystokinin (responds primarily to dietary fat). Fiber from plants helps you feel full longer. Choose whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. These fiber rich foods also support gut health and diverse gut microbiome. Our gut health status (diversity and richness of gut bacteria) influences our blood sugar, our metabolic flexibility and our food choices and cravings.
Many of us are overfed but undernourished. Micronutrient deficiencies are incredibly common and inadequate intake can lead to all kinds of health issues, such as impaired immune system, cognitive issues, thyroid problems, and feeling hungry all the time because you are undernourished! For instance, omega-3 rich foods are wonderful for reducing inflammation, improve mood and cognitive function. Often our bodies run low on these essential fatty acids. Note that there are three different types of omega-3 fatty acids: DHA, EPA, and ALA. If you eat fully vegetarian or vegan diet, this is something you want to pay attention to and potentially supplement with high quality algal oil and regularly add spirulina or cholerella to your smoothies because algae and seaweed are those very few plant sources for DHA and EPA. Another great example is magnesium (leafy greens, dark chocolate, nuts, seeds, whole, grains, etc.) which has an important role in preparing DNA-damage and controlling insulin production, which influences testosterone levels as well as the health of ovaries. Recently, there was a very interesting conversation between Andrew Huberman, Ph.D and Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D regarding micronutrients and their effect on health and longevity. Highly, recommend watching that episode.
Meal times are your sacred time. No eating at your desk. No eating on the couch or in bed - no phones or other tech devices! Sitting helps to increase our focus and so we become more aware of how much we eat. Eat enough (!) so that you don’t need to snack between meals. Of course, you can have one snack if you have a long day or a workout session afterwork but choose something high in protein or healthy full fats so that you do not end up grazing. If you struggle with your natural hunger signals, learn to pause before you eat and check in with yourself by asking questions like: Is this an emotion that’s making me feel hungry? What am I really hungry for: food or something else? Are there any physical cues like low energy and growling stomach?
The worst offenders are white bread, sugary drinks, cakes, and cookies. Your blood sugar drops shortly and you crave more - and the cycle repeats. Note that artificial sweeteners can also spike your insulin despite they provide zero calories and no sugar. Ultra-processed foods (made from a handful of crops like wheat, corn, soy, sugar) only cause very short-term pleasure and lead to dopamine high like heroin. Remember this is not about restriction and starvation. Restriction leads craving more those things that we don’t allow to ourselves and makes us feel mentally and emotionally unwell. When it’s time to celebrate, it’s ok to enjoy mindfully. When you attend social events and share meals with other people don’t think that you have failed and now you may just let go and do whatever, such as start binge drinking and overeat all sorts of exotic foods. Tomorrow is a new day and you continue with your routines as usual. Celebrating life with others is perfectly fine and essential for our wellbeing, but when enjoyment becomes an addiction that’s when you have a problem.
This journey is all about learning to become more mindful and aware what is happening in our bodies and minds as well as in the world around us so that we can live in peace with ourselves and with the rest of the world.
The most challenging thing is often to build and sustain new, healthier habits. If you struggle with transforming your life, feel free to reach out, and I am happy to guide you on your journey!
Lots of Love!
Resources:
Books:
In the Flow: Unlock Your Hormonal Advantage and Revolutionize Your Life by Alisa Vitti
The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss by Dr. Jason Fung, MD
Podcasts:
Huberman Lab - Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Micronutrients for Health and Longevity