Are all calories created equal? I’m here to end the debate.

I’ve referenced this debate numerous times in previous blog posts, so I figured it was time to justify my feelings on the topic.

Herein lies the discrepancy, and also the fundamental reason that people can find a preponderance of evidence to support both sides of the argument: how strictly the caloric intake was controlled in the study. Let me specify further: was there adequate protein intake in the diet and were the subjects allowed to auto-regulate food intake or were their meals prescribed for them?

As you can imagine, when the two factors above are manipulated, the results of the study can vary wildly.

First off, as I’ve stressed time and time again, if protein intake is not kept at adequate levels (i.e., .8 g/lb. as a bare minimum), then the results of dieting efforts will be severely compromised. I’m ready and willing to concede that if you compare higher and lower protein intake diets, then the higher protein diet will almost always trump the lower — given that the calories are isocaloric, i.e., the same intake. In that case — the case of calories from protein vs. other macronutrients — a calorie is not a calorie. This is exactly why setting protein intake (after setting total caloric intake) is such a vital part of an effective fat-loss diet.

After establishing that protein calories are the most important calories and are relatively inflexible fixtures of effective diets, we can then examine what happens when the other macronutrients (carbohydrates and fats, and content thereof) are manipulated. The answer, (not) surprisingly, is very little. Assuming calories and protein are held steady, where the rest of the deficit comes from doesn’t really matter. Weight is lost at the same rate; furthermore, the composition of the weight lost remains the same. Kind of makes all the “brown rice and sweet potatoes or YOU’RE GONNA DIE!” people look silly, right? I wanted to point out that this occurs in situations where calories are very tightly controlled, i.e., people are not allowed to eat at will. Sure, fibrous carbs like brown rice may slow gastric emptying time, but research has also shown that the most satiating food is white potatoes. I don’t know about you, but I like feeling full while dieting. Again, this is not to say that sweet potatoes don’t work while dieting, but they certainly don’t make you lose weight any faster when calories are equal. Seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how angry asserting fact this makes people.

The other side of the coin is the studies where people are allowed to eat whatever they want given certain guidelines. What’s interesting about these studies is that we are actually able to derive why certain dietary strategies indeed work if we peel back the layers a bit.

For example, let’s examine what happens when someone is asked to reduce dietary fat to a certain level, but no other recommendations are given. Inevitably, that person loses weight because fat is the most calorically dense of all the macronutrients. For every gram of fat slashed from the diet, the person is giving away the accompanying roughly 9 calories that go with it. In long-term low dietary fat diets, however, most people end up gaining the weight back because that newly absent dietary fat has been replaced with a commensurate amount of carbohydrates, and excessive consumption of carbohydrates (especially simple carbs) has been linked to overeating.

Similarly, tell someone to reduce or remove carbohydrates from their diet and there is the initial weight-loss effect of removing a large portion of calories from the diet, as well as a marked reduction in water weight because the body holds less water on a low-carbohydrate diet. Most people eat less initially simply out of lack of options due to the removal of an entire food group (the most common food group in a typical American diet to boot; sometimes more than 50% of caloric intake). Another common mistake is confusing the quick loss of several pounds after embarking on such a diet for fat-loss. Quite simply, it’s not. It’s just water, as mentioned above.

I just wanted to note that individual variances in rate of weight-loss from diet to diet and differing levels of caloric intake are more than likely due to individual metabolic idiosyncrasies. Just because your best friend tried diet X and found it superior to all others doesn’t mean it is, per say. I’ll tell you one thing, though, more than likely diet X — if it worked for your friend — had adequate protein intake and caloric intake below maintenance.

So are all calories created equal? Is a calorie just a calorie? Strictly speaking, no, but for practical application I say YES! With a few caveats (c’mon, there’s always a catch):

1) Sufficient protein intake always trumps lack thereof. If you’re not eating enough protein and not meeting your physique goals, start here.

2) When tightly controlling caloric intake (along w/ #1, of course), the breakdown of the rest — carbs and fats — doesn’t really matter. Not enough to be statistically significant.

3) For folks seeking extremely low levels of body fat or the seriously obese, there may be exceptions to these rules, but these are outliers and shouldn’t concern the average dieter.

This post, coupled with my previous post, should give you all the information you need to set up an effective fat-loss diet. If you still need clarification on anything, just ask!

Okay guys, we’re going to take a look at a bare-bones approach to dieting for fat-loss: the essential details. No fluff, no repartee, no psuedoscientific debate.

Here’s what you need to do:

1) Create an appropriate caloric deficit. Not too much (no deficit), not too little (starvation = unsustainable).

2) Set protein intake based off of #1. Protein being the most essential nutrient to any type of diet.

3) Set dietary fat intake. More important than carbs for numerous reasons, also set off #1 & #2.

4) Everything else. From carbohydrate intake, to meal volume/frequency, to nutrient timing, all of this is minutiae compared to numbers 1-3.

*NOTE: This list is arranged in order of importance, if I didn’t make that clear.

Let me just quell the “not all calories are created equal” uprising that I can see brewing on the horizon with a big GRANTED; I’ll give you that (but it’s still minutiae, and for more on this, I really like Gary Taube’s Good Calories, Bad Calories). But, the calories in vs. calories out equation (the energy balance equation) is unequivocally the ONLY factor (that matters) when determining if a diet will yield fat-loss. If expenditure doesn’t exceed intake, you’re not going to come up on the right side of the equation (for fat-loss). Again, let me make this explicitly clear: YOU MUST BURN MORE CALORIES THAN YOU TAKE IN; this is obvious, right? Hundreds of times per month I see Internet fitness “pundits” arguing this fact. I know that eating certain foods make you less/more likely to eat more and certain foods cost more/less to digest than others (truths clung to by said pundits as the ultimate trump card against the calories in/calories out philosophy). The fact is, the practical, applicable effect of these strategies is a drop in the bucket compared to the effect of eating less than your caloric output. Don’t miss the forest for the trees. I know, I’ve said that before, but sometimes everyone in the fitness industry seems to be planted in front of the same damn tree, desperately trying to get out of the forest.

Back to #1, because I promised no fluff; how do you create an appropriate deficit? For the purposes of this article, use 10-12 calories/lb. of body weight. This may seem like one of those old wives’ tales numbers that is seemingly conjured out of convenience, but it is scientifically validated. Please understand that this is a starting point and adjustments are going to need to be made along the way. Also, the less active and more out of shape a person is, the lower the calories are going to have to be.

With regards to #2, we again find that one of those old rules of thumb has scientific backing: 1 gram of protein/lb. of body weight. When dealing with lean(er) individuals, I tend to recommend closer to 1.5 g/lb. With extremely overweight and inactive individuals, as low as .7 g/lb. may be all that’s required. In rare cases, such as a PSMF (protein-sparing modified fasting) diet, the recommendation may exceed 1.5 g/lb. The vast majority of people will find themselves within the 1 - 1.5 g/lb. bracket.

There is a strategy to automatically take into account an individual’s degree of leanness: use 1.5 g/lb. of lean body mass, not body weight. A 150 lb. woman with 20% body fat, for example, is left with 120 lbs. of lean body mass. This woman would require 180 grams of protein per day using the formula in this paragraph. Using the strategy in the previous paragraph (1 - 1.5 g/lb. of body weight), the woman would require anywhere from 150 - 225 grams of protein per day. Our recommendation of 180 grams is wholly consistent with this range.

Fat intake (#3) is fairly straightforward. I favor a moderate intake: enough to satiate and slow the rate of gastric emptying, but not enough to glut the total amount of calories; fat is more calorically dense than protein or carbohydrates. .22 - .33 g/lb. of fat is the normative range; this usually gives 10-15 grams of fat per meal if eating 4-6 times per day (which I recommend).

#4 is reserved for everything else. What’s obviously left over is carbohydrates, oddly something that people put a ton of emphasis on. As you can see from the importance hierarchy, they are last on the totem pole. Again, this is not to say they aren’t important; rather, they are less important than protein and fats. There’s a reason why there’s no such thing as an essential carbohydrate (whereas there are essential proteins and fats). What’s also left over is the logistics: how and where you distribute these calories & macronutrients throughout the day. Obviously, the logistics aspect will be what varies wildly based on personal preferences. Want to see this in action?

Let’s use a hypothetical 200lb. dieter with 15% body fat:

1. Calories: 200 lbs. x 12 cal/lb. = 2400 calories/day
2. Protein: 170* lbs. x 1.5 g/lb. = 255 grams/day (1020 calories/day) *Note: I used the lean body mass variation I presented.
3. Fat: 200 lbs. x 0.33 g/lb. = 66 grams/day (594 calories/day)
4. Carbohydrates: 2400 calories (#1) - 1614 calories (#2 + #3) = ~200 grams/day (~800 calories/day)

Translate that into something like this:

Meal One: 50g protein, 50g carbohydrates, 16g fat

Meal Two: 50g protein, 16g fat

Meal Three (pre-workout): 50g protein, 50g carbohydrates, 16g fat

Meal Four (post-workout): 50g protein, 100g carbohydrates

Meal Five: 50g protein, 16g fat

Totals: 2376 calories, 250g protein, 200g carbohydrates, 64g fat

There you have it. The essential details of how to set up a fat-loss diet. Good luck! I’m here for questions, as always.