Stop counting calories because one calorie is not the other!

Although the number of calories on a food product can give an indication of what the product will do for your body, this number doesn't really tell you that much either.

Are food products with more calories necessarily worse than those with few calories? The answer is not simply yes or no.

First things first!  What is a calorie?

According to the Dikke Van Dale, a calorie is the unit of account in which the energy value of foods is expressed. Thus, calories in food provide our bodies with the energy needed to function. Our bodies burn calories as fuel.

For cars, there are great differences in the quality of different types of fuel, and our bodies are no different!

Quality beats quantity

If you want to lose weight, just eat fewer calories and the sock is off, right! Not exactly.

It's not so much the quantity of calories alone. It is the combination of the type of calorie, the amount of calories and the distribution throughout the day that make for a healthy diet.

In the classic system of calorie counting, many people fall into the trap. This is because they become convinced that if they count calories nicely and make sure they do not exceed the predetermined number, they will lose weight and live healthy anyway.

There are 2 major pitfalls in this:

• Calorie intake is not nicely distributed throughout the day

Your body has a certain energy requirement throughout the day. Even when you are not exercising or physically active, your bodily functions need energy to function optimally. Think of your brain to come up with your fantastic brain twists, your heart that keeps your blood flowing and so much more.

If you eat a lot of calories at once, your body cannot process that sudden abundance and will convert it into fat. Moreover, at the other times in that day, your body will not get what it needs. So even if you don't eat too many calories according to a classical system, you may even gain weight.

• The calorie total remains nicely limited, but your body has barely gotten what it needs

You can stay perfectly within your "point total" by, say, wolfing down 2 chocolate bars at once and not eating very much else. You're still perfectly within your calories. But your body is getting nothing of what it needs to function properly. No vitamins, minerals, macro-nutrients, .... Nothing, nada, zip... Healthy you think? Not really huh... just sayin'.

The quality of the calories you eat is incredibly important. Much more important than the amount of calories.

Even if you do not necessarily want to lose weight, but want to live as healthy as possible with a balanced diet, it is important to choose those calories of the right quality that give your body what it needs.

Good versus bad calories

You can actually divide the quality of calories into 3 categories. The good, the bad and the terribly bad.

The good calories can be found in real foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and kernels, proteins, whole grain foods, ....  These calories give your body what it needs to give you optimal health full of energy.

Bad calories, you guessed it, can be found in sweets, soft drinks, all kinds of sugary products, ... These are "empty" calories that have nothing to offer your body and which, moreover, in no time give you a huge sugar dip, hunger attacks and a short fuse. In the long run, you are preying on your body and its reserves and these empty calories even saddle you with elevated cholesterol, hypertension, fatigue and so on.

 What about the terribly bad calories? They are contained in products with trans fats, ready-made meals, highly processed foods, ... These calories not only bring nothing to your body, they can even harm your health.

Example anyone??

For example, if you eat a handful of nuts and dried fruits, you might be shocked at the number of calories they contain. But they give you more than a handful of vitamins, dietary fiber, minerals and antioxidants in return, which ensure that your body can function optimally.

When you eat nuts, seeds and kernels, you feel satiated much longer. This allows you to continue without hunger until your next (healthy) meal and you will be less likely to reach for too much and/or unhealthy food in a hunger attack. The many good nutrients in nuts and seeds can reduce the risk of many chronic diseases and increase protection against cardiovascular disease because they help lower LDL cholesterol levels (also known as "bad cholesterol").

These good calories give your body much-needed fuel, so it's not a good idea to start avoiding them.

The bad calories, on the other hand, really do nothing for your body, quite the contrary. Trans fats, for example, cannot be digested by our body, accumulate in our stomach wall and are linked to inflammatory reactions in your body that you really don't want.

Conclusion

Dare to move away from pure calorie counting. Choose a healthy, balanced diet with good calories that give your body what it needs, namely vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber, healthy fats, protein and complex carbohydrates.

Choose to spread a healthy amount of good calories balanced throughout the day and you won't know what to do with all that regained energy!

JustBite can get you started on this with our healthy snacks and the tips and tricks we like to give you.

Discover our healthy snacks