Are All Calories Created Equally?

When it comes to the laws of thermodynamics, the answer is yes.

A unit of energy is a unit of energy, so when it comes to controlling and regulating someone’s caloric intake for weight loss, the numbers matter. This is when we can talk about calories in (what we consume) vs calories out (what we use) being the major determining factor in someone’s change in weight.

At this stage it’s good to understand and consider the thermic effect of food (TEF). The thermic effect of food refers to the energy required for digestion, absorption, and disposal of a given nutrient following ingestion. In essence, we need calories to break down the energy in food.

So how much energy do we expend during these processes?

Carbohydrates: 5 to 15% of the energy consumed Protein: 20 to 35% Fats: at most 5 to 15%

So if you were to consume 100 kcals of protein you would use up 20-35 kcals digesting, absorbing and disposing of it.

Whereas if you were to consume 100 kcals of carbohydrates/fats you would use just 5-15kcals digesting, absorbing and disposing of them, which quite clearly highlights the fact that not all calories are created equally.

Weight loss, in its simplest form, is just a matter of managing energy balance. So, in essence you can lose weight by consuming anything you want provided the calories in are less than the calories being used.

However, if the majority of your diet revolves around the consumption of foods that are devoid of critical nutrients, such as dietary fibre, amino acids, antioxidants, dietary vitamins and minerals then this will make managing energy balance much harder for multiple reasons, which I will cover in my next post.