#1. Our Cells Need High-Calorie Nutrients to Thrive
A calorie of low-quality food such as processed grains or sugar does not help us perform the same as a calorie of high-quality foods like fat, protein or fibre. So why do we give so much power to a measurement that is such a poor predictor of health? High-quality, nutrient-dense foods offer our body vitamins, minerals, enzymes, cofactors, polyphenols, antioxidants, phospholipids and fatty acids that are essential to maintain and grow healthy cells. Many of these nutrient-dense foods such as avocado or olive oil are higher in calories than one of Kellogs or Weight Watcher’s 100 calorie packaged snacks, yet they provide the body with quality nutrients that keep our body healthy and performing its best – instead of feeling fatigued and irritable because of the low-calorie diet we are endlessly attempting to sick to.
So how did our culture become so obsessed with counting calories if high-calorie foods are actually essential for good health? Unfortunately, diet culture along with misguided health care advice has led us to the “eat less and exercise more” mentality that fuelled the growth of processed foods marketed to dieters with a “low calorie” or “fat-free” label, proclaiming their benefits in helping us meet our weight loss goals. The reality is that we need high-quality, high-fat foods to thrive, so it makes perfect sense to prioritize these foods first in our diet and avoid “useless” low-calorie foods that don’t offer our body the nutrients it needs.
#2. What We Eat Affects our Hunger Hormones
A meal containing high-quality fat not only increases the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins in our food but also increases satiety, decreases hunger hormones and elongates our blood sugar curve throughout the day which allows for sustained energy and avoids blood sugar crashes. Fat is the only macronutrient in our diet that does not cause an increase in blood sugar or insulin. This is HUGE when it comes to regulating your appetite and hunger hormones. Compared to when we eat a meal high in carbs and low in fat, which decreases the absorption of nutrients and increases our blood sugar levels. If essential nutrients our body needs are not absorbed, hunger hormones stay in circulation, our cells continue to tell the brain to crave more energy because they still haven’t gotten the nutrition they need to function properly. This is referred to as internal starvation – a state of being overfed, yet undernourished. This scenario is exacerbated in diabetics who have increased insulin resistance, which had led to blood sugar and metabolism dysregulation. In this scenario, our blood sugar starts to peak causing a rush of insulin to be released, which then drops blood sugar back down into a low range and we start to feel hungry again for another carb-rich meal – aka that familiar 3 pm sugar craving.
In addition to our bodies thriving on high-calorie foods, it also needs nutritional variety. Back in our hunter and gather days, humans would eat vegetables and fruits that were in season, fish when they were spawning, insects and small animals like rabbits when they were available and larger animals like moose and deer when they were able to make a kill. This all added up to a ton of variety in their diets that provided an evolutionary advantage for them. Specific pathways are engaged while certain nutrients are available. This allows the body to focus its energy on specific tasks when those building materials are available. For example, when ample protein is around, the body can focus on building new muscle and immune cells to make you stronger and more resilient. When protein is not available, the body will break down old proteins and recycle the amino acids to maintain baseline performance, cleaning out slower dysfunctional cells. When protein is incorporated back into the diet, the body can use those amino acids more effectively, building muscle tissue faster and in the areas needed most. This contributes to the natural ebb and flow of growth and recovery phases, allowing the body to be more efficient with its available nutrients. If excess protein is around all of the time, the balance between these pathways becomes offset and dysfunction can occur. After all, any extra protein hanging around in the body that is not needed for protein synthesis is quickly turned into sugar, which can be burned for energy or stored as fat. Additionally, too much sugar hanging around in the blood can cause a host of issues; leading to insulin resistance, blood vessels dysregulation and organ damage. For these reasons, eating more protein than what our body needs is not beneficial for long-term health. Just like carbs and sugar, protein also increases blood sugar and insulin when consumed in excess. This is another example of how important incorporating Time Restricted Eating (TRE) or Intermittent Fasting (IF) is for maintaining a healthy balance of protein recycling in the body.
The same goes for our energy production systems. Humans are able to quickly break down and utilize sugar from carbohydrates that can be used right away to make energy. Our bodies love these quick fixes of fuel because they replenish our glycogen stores and give us the energy to perform strenuous tasks like hunting and chasing prey. However, there are numerous benefits that occur when we go without carbs or sugar – our bodies can switch to burning stored fat for fuel, providing sustained energy that is not limited by our glycogen stores. This allows the body to produce different hormones, ketones and fatty acids that are suppressed while eating sugar/carbs, which work synergistically to increase cognitive function and muscle growth, even while in a calorie deficit due to their muscle conserving effects. From these examples, we can see how eating three meals a day plus snacks deprives the body of these innate cycles of switching between fuel sources – which is why most of us now feel irritated and uncomfortable when we’ve missed a meal or two. Our bodies have lost their metabolic capacity to switch to burning fat for fuel.
#3. Our Caloric Demands Change Drastically from Day to Day
Reason #3 you should stop wasting your time counting calories is because even if you are meticulously accurate in counting your intake, this number means absolutely nothing to a metabolism whose energy requirements are constantly fluctuating. Our body’s caloric demands can change drastically from day to day depending on which pathways are engaged – if you are in a growth or recovery phase, if you’re cold, if you have an acute or chronic illness, your activity levels, auto-immune dysfunction, hormone production, etc. Therefore, it’s not very logical to be setting a static energy intake goal when your body may need double the energy one day and half as much the next. Counting calories will leave you frustrated, defeated, and may contribute to disordered eating patterns or yo-yo dieting. Obsessing over calories or macros is not an effective way to maintain a healthy weight long-term. Remember, our goal is for both our physical and mental health to thrive.
Eating intuitively while having the proper knowledge to prioritize the foods our body needs to perform (listed in our Nutrition Guide) and listening to our body to know when we need to increase our intake is the best way to fuel a healthy metabolism.
Given that ancestral humans definitely did not eat 3 square meals a day composed of “all of the food groups,” it’s quite interesting that these have been the diet recommendations from the health industry for decades now. Early humans likely ate one meal a day and grazed on some tubers or other plants or insects when they came across them. They likely spent the majority of the day fasting, with longer periods of fasting during the winter months. Fasting was not a problem for them because their bodies evolved to thrive in both fed and fasted states – pretty smart right?
So What Does This All Mean For You?
When you eat intuitively, you’ll likely get all of the proper nutrition your body needs at that specific time. This is why pregnant women have such strong cravings, their nutrient demands have doubled and their cells are yelling out for more materials to keep building. When your body doesn’t get the energy, nutrients, or sleep that it needs – it calls out for more energy in the form of a sugar craving – a quick energy fix. When you change to eating a high-calorie, nutrient-dense whole foods diet, your body will stop craving sugary and processed foods. Eat real food, don’t count calories, listen to your body for signals of hunger and don’t eat breakfast at 7 am when you’re not hungry just because the lady on TV told you it is the most important meal of the day.
For more info on fasting, nutrition, and optimizing your health and wellness, check out our eBook series.