When we think about health and fitness, two concerns we tend to concentrate on is losing weight and building muscle. How to accomplish these goals tend to be where people get confused.
A lot of times you hear people say “it’s simple--calories in versus calories out!” While other people think it’s more complex than that due to hormone imbalances, insulin resistance, and other health problems that affect metabolism, for example the ability for the digestive system to turn food into energy.
I believe that both ideas contain facets of truth. A better way to look at this issue is “energy in” and “energy out.” There are many factors that affect “energy in,” like appetite, foods consumed, and psychological factors, like stress levels. The same goes for “energy out,” including energy burned at rest, energy burned through exercise, energy burned by non-exercise activity, and energy burned by metabolizing food. These factors are why counting calories is a waste of time. Even if you were able to accurately weigh and measure every morsel of food you ate, it would still be almost impossible to have an exact “calories in” number. Why? First, we don’t absorb all the calories we consume and absorption rates vary across different food types . Second, we all absorb calories uniquely based on our individual micro-biome or gut bacteria. This doesn’t mean that calories in versus calories out doesn’t work, but the tools we have to accurately measure it are limited. In every case we’re always manipulating “energy in” directly and indirectly.
The facts are: if you’re not losing weight, you either need to decrease “energy in” or increase “energy out.” But as explained, that might involve far more than pushing your plate away or spending more time at the gym. I want to push you to go a bit deeper. In fact, it may require you to:
Get more high-quality sleep in order to better regulate hunger hormones and improve recovery.
Try to reduce stress and spend more time in nature.
Increase your daily non-exercise activities by parking your car a few blocks away from your destination, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and/or standing while you work.
Improve the nutrient quality of the food you’re eating, as opposed to reducing quantity. Always remember whole foods are self-correcting.
Experiment with the timing of your meals.
Evaluate and correct any nutritional deficiencies. This could likely be a huge factor in how energized you feel throughout the day.
Overall, there is a common denominator in all this and that is daily exercise and eating whole foods focusing on vegetables, nuts, beans, seeds, and fruit. An increase in exercise and consumption of nutrient dense whole foods not only serves to boost “energy out,” but it also changes nutrient partitioning by sending more calories toward muscle growth and fewer to fat storage. The building of muscle and retaining of muscle are metabolic boosters.
Our hope at Forte is that this creates awareness as well as hope for some people. Be mindful of all the different variables that make up health and fitness and become more self-aware to better serve your body, so you can become the healthiest version of yourself. Don’t get bogged down – it is as simple as exercise and eat whole foods.