hi today I'm going to talk about why calorie counting and cutting calories doesn't work has never worked and will never work and it really comes down to simple algebra and we're not breaking any laws of thermodynamics here stick around and we'll talk more [Music] about let's start with the energy balance equation which is that body fat equals calories in minus calories out because body fat is just a store of food energy or calories so if you're eating calories and you're burning calories well if calories in is greater than the amount of calories out then you're going to store some of that as body fat this is a balanced equation so there's never a caloric deficit there are three variables here body fat calories in and calories out and they must all balance together so if we simply look at it as a mathematical equation you can rewrite this and say that increased in body fat is equal to calories in greater than calories out so because these two things are equal just like if you were to write 3 + 4al 7 anywhere you see seven you could put 3 + 4 and anywhere you see 3 + 4 you could put seven because they're equivalent quantities so So when you say that increased body weight equals calories in minus calories out anywhere you see one you can replace it with the other so here's the problem when people start to then ask the question what causes increased body weight or obesity what causes it lots of people will say well calories in greater than calories out causes increased weight gain but that's not true they're actually the same thing one did not cause the other let's look at it from a mathematical standpoint if you say calories in greater than calories out led to increased body fat let's replace the calories in greater than calories out with increased body fat because they're equivalent quantities which means that you're basically saying that increased body fat is caused by increased body fat logically this is completely nonsensical they're not one did not cause the other they simply are the same thing just like if you're to say that alcoholism equals alcohol in minus alcohol out obviously right if you drink alcohol and you metabolize alcohol the leftover is how much alcohol is in your system so if you're to say what causes alcoholism nobody would say well alcohol in greater than alcohol out causes alcoholism because it it doesn't they're actually equivalent they're the same thing saying you're alcoholic is the same as saying that alcohol in is greater than alcohol out so then you have to ask the deeper question that is why is alcohol in greater than alcohol out and that's where you might say well it could be due to addiction it could be post-traumatic stress disorder it could be depression it could be poor coping mechanisms whatever it is is not alcohol in greater than alcohol out which focuses you on the actual solution that is if depression is the problem focus on the depression don't just say drink less alcohol that's the answer to worldwide alcoholism because it's not yet logically we've applied exactly the same thing so let's get back to increased body weight so some people might say hey here's the solution you simply eat fewer calories if you reduce the calories in you're going to lose body weight which is 100% not true why because it's not the total number of calories that is important it's the fact that it's greater than your calories out why doesn't eating fewer calories work because a hundred years of nutritional research has consistently shown one thing if you simply reduce the number of calories you eat your body will burn fewer calories that is if you reduce your calories in your body will reduce the calories out in which case calories in is still greater than calories out and therefore you still got increased weight gain it's not the number of calories it's the relationship between those two items the calories in and the calories out and what change that relationship well hormones such as insulin do for example insulin is a natural hormone it tells your body to store body fat so if you eat calories in insulin is telling your body to store some of his body fat so to keep that relationship between calories in greater than calories out so that you gain body fat that's why you can make anybody fat if you give them enough insulin they will gain weight because insulin is Shifting that relationship between calories in calories out and that's the whole problem if you simply look at the calories you're not going to understand the problem it's the relationship between those calories or it's the way that the body is partitioning those calories that is the problem you can think of this as a deeper uh problem what is causing the increased body weight is the same thing as saying why is calories in greater than calories out and you can say okay so maybe it's too much insulin such as when we give people insulin maybe it's eating too much sugar which will also spike in maybe it's the ultra processed foods maybe it's food addiction maybe it's emotional eating maybe it's mindless eating maybe it's too many refined carbs maybe it's eating too often maybe it's eating too late maybe it's stress eating maybe it's junk food maybe you're eating out too much maybe it's you're eating too many sweets or potato chips or french fries that then focuses you on the problem because if your problem is that you're eating too late which can stimulate insulin as I've written about in my blog then you need to shift your eating to earlier so people who are night shift workers that can certainly be the problem and the problem isn't low willpower or they didn't count their calories properly it's that yeah they were eating too late and when you fix that problem then the weight problem will go away so why does calories in calories out seem so intuitive because it's a classic case of circular logic if you are gaining weight people say well it's because you're eating too much well how do you know you're eating too much because you're gaining weight so in other words you're gaining weight because you're eating too much and you're eating too much because you're gaining weight so one thing proves the other but in no case have you actually determined how many calories is actually too much and in fact many many many people have done this they've measured the number of calories that they burn so for example H when they try to lose weight they find that they're burning 1,500 calories a day so the nutritionist will come in and say okay you need to eat 1,200 calories a day guess what they start to lose the weight and then the body responds by reducing its energy expenditure to 1,200 calories a day and then the weight loss completely stops so they can never come up with an answer an absolute number of how many calories it is they just say well it's not working because you're not counting your calories right but you were counting your calories out the problem is you didn't focus on the root cause of why calories in is greater than calories out and what is Shifting that balance so don't be fooled by all those people who say calorie counting always works it almost never works every single study we've done shows that it doesn't work there is no study that says you can take somebody reduce 500 calories a day and they will lose weight there is no study in all of the scientific literature in all of human history that actually shows that