dietary calories are just as real as Santa Claus

IMNSHO, gnolls.org is one of the most underrated paleo blogs on the net.

The "There Is No Such Thing As A Calorie" series is truly one of the best explanations of calories that I have ever seen anywhere.

If you have a vague and fuzzy understanding of calories, definitely check it out...

When I first went on insulin, I carefully tracked the grams of carbohydrate, grams of protein and calories in everything I ate for over a year. Since I mostly eat real food cooked from scratch, I spent scores of hours running my recipes through nutritional software.

I needed the carbohydrate and protein amounts for dosing insulin, which I did using a formula that also included my preprandial bG.

Because the insulin dose is aimed at the food, you have to eat what you intended to even if you're full halfway through the meal. And because it takes 4 hours for the shot to finish, you can't take your preprandial bG again and figure a shot to cover eating a second plate if you're still hungry. This is why I tracked calories too, so if I wasn't very hungry, I could have a meal in the 400 calorie range, bu if I was ravenous, I'd aim at the 800 calorie range.

I had no interest in weight loss. I was disabled, suffering severe fatigue, and often bedridden. Controlling my bG pretty much took up all my time and energy. I ate as little or as much as I wanted, sometimes less than 800 calories a day, and sometimes over 3000.

After a year, I got curious one day and sat down to figure what my average calorie intake was. And when I had that number, I ran it through several of the many handy-dandy weight calculators online and discovered that every calculator thought I weighed 100 lbs less than scale thought I did.

Clearly, this whole correlation between calories in and weight was nonexistent.

When I ran across this series chockful of research and enough charts and graphs to make any scientist cream her panties, I GOT it.

vintage post

There Is No Such Thing As A "Calorie" (To Your Body) - In which we discover that the concept of a "calorie" within biochemistry is such a wild simplification that it is pretty much a meaningless concept. You are not a calorimeter!

The Calorie Paradox: Did Four Rice Chex Make America Fat? (Part II of "There Is No Such Thing As A Calorie") - In which we discover that the whole notion that 3500 calories = 1 lb fat is utter and complete nonsense with no correlation to reality whatsoever. It turns out, we eat FOOD not calories!

More Peer-Reviewed Evidence That There Is No Such Thing As A "Calorie" To Your Body (Part III) - In which we learn that calorie math doesn't work for calculating either weight loss or weight gain (with a bonus explanation of the difference between relative and absolute percentages). Coconut oil and butter somehow magically subtract calories from your other food!

Protein Matters: Yet More Peer-Reviewed Evidence That There Is No Such Thing As A "Calorie" To Your Body (Part IV) - In which we learn that protein calories are smaller than carbohydrate and fat calories. Cause calories are theoretical constructs that have no correlation to reality!

Can You Really Count Calories? (Part V of "There Is No Such Thing As A Calorie") - In which we learn that if we try to count calories in spite of their non-existence, we're likely to eat more processed foods... and get fatter!

Calorie Cage Match! Sugar (Sucrose) Vs. Protein And Honey (There Is No Such Thing As A "Calorie", Part VI) - In which we learn that not only are protein calories "better" than carb and fat calories, but the TYPE matters. Honey calories are better than sugar calories. Fat calories with omega 3 fatty acids are better than other fat calories. This isn't about inflammation, but about weight gain - caused by low protein, high sugar and low omega 3s regardless of the calories!

What do you think of the entire notion of calories?