Six common beliefs addressed, Part 228

1. Fat calories matter more for a fat person so not all calories are equal. 

All calories are equal because they are just units of energy measurement but calories from different sources are compartmentalized differently in the body and effect metabolism in different ways. The calories of energy macronutrients like carbohydrates and fat are better targets for an overweight/obese person, for different reasons.

• Carbohydrates effect blood glucose homeostasis which helps contribute to body fat through insulin/leptin disruption.
• Fat is stored easily and not burned when leptin is under expressed. This only adds to more body fat and a greater insulin demand, further exacerbating the sparing of body fat.

2. What is the difference between basal metabolic rate and total daily energy expenditure? Basal metabolic rate is usually the most talked about in diets.

• Basal metabolic rate is the rate at which the body uses energy while at rest, just to keep vital functions going.
• Total energy expenditure consists of basal metabolic rate + the thermic effect of feeding + physical activity.

Diets usually talk about basal metabolic rate because it can make up to 50-70% of your total daily energy expenditure, making it very important for determining how much fuel you actually burn. Body fat is also the preferred fuel for basal metabolism and that is exactly what you want to burn off. This is why it is the most common target.

3. Diet coaches keep telling me that all calories are the same, but then say that all caloric sources do not affect energy expenditure in the same way. It's like they are double talking. Do calories in/calories out (CICO) advocates assume all calories are the same or not?

Because they are double talking. Actually, they are just nitpicking semantics. All calories are the same because they are just units of measurement for energy. Sort of like all digits on a clock are the same because they all measure time but there's a huge difference between a New York minute and a Mississippi one.

Usually when calories are being discussed, it is in the context of overweight/obesity, so knowing how calories from different sources effect our metabolism is important since not all caloric sources affect energy expenditure in the same way. After all, in order to lose body fat, you have to burn it, so you want to make sure that you are able to do just that. You want to burn more and store less.

There are multiple ways to achieve this, but you have to do it in a way where the body's compensatory mechanisms don't kick in and sabotage your progress. Also, achieving this is not the same as sustaining it. That's why you want to provide the body efficient calories, not just calories. Just like how I could get things done efficiently in New York City will be very different from how I could get things done efficiently in Mississippi, though the clock still reads the same times in both places.

In classic, run of the mill CICO, as it's practiced in calorie centered protocols, all calories are treated the same. It doesn't matter if you eat a Snickers bar or a leg of lamb, you must keep to your caloric goals. Because these programs have failed so dismally, and obesity research keeps evolving, a lot of calorie centered protocols do not practice this anymore. They now sneak in macronutrient tracking for better results. So many CICO advocates will now tell you that they do not believe that all calories are the same, sort of, kind of. They have also replaced "calorie deficits" with "calorie tracking" and "calorie goals" with "calorie budgets".

Surprisingly, many CICO advocates now also believe there is such a thing as "fat shaming" and "hormones". They used to just talk about "will power" and "effort". Go figure. You have to respect the hustle though. They are trying desperately to stay relevant and not give up on their theory. I salute them.

4. There a difference between the thermal effect of food between carbohydrates versus fat.

Not in any significant amount. The highest thermal effect of food is from protein metabolism.

5. Hormones do not impact energy expenditure.

There are many hormones that effect energy expenditure. No one hormone is responsible for any one thing in isolation. The body has a very complex series of feedback loop systems that effect the state of all hormones. When one hormone is out of whack, they all become out of whack, and they can no longer be treated effectively in isolation. In other words, you can't target one hormone and expect for things to magically correct themselves.

Two major hormones that effect energy expenditure are:

• Thyroid hormone, which can reduce basal metabolic rate by up to 25%.
• Leptin plays a role in basal metabolic rate regulation because it allows the burning of body fat or not.

6. If insulin levels are low, then you cannot get fat from dietary fat. This is why Type I diabetics are so thin.

Fat can be stored without an increase in insulin via acylation stimulating protein (ASP). This is really useless information even though some might find it interesting.

Every time someone comes across something interesting, they begin giving it too much importance and this only makes their body continue to put on fat. For example, the calories in/calories out (CICO) crowd loves bringing up ASP to try and discount insulin and emphasize how easily dietary fat is stored. But ASP is an adipogenic hormone which not only stimulates triglyceride synthesis but also glucose transport into fat cells. So, this hormone doesn't just help store fat, but also glucose. It also stimulates insulin secretion, so we are back to square one.

As you can see, the body has multiple interesting mechanisms for achieving the same result, as no one mechanism can be depended on solely. It always has a fail safe, especially for the storage of body fat as body fat is extraordinarily valuable to it.

So, none of this really matters and that's why I try to stay away from this type of stuff. It won't help you lose a pound. The only thing that matters is that you can absolutely get fat with low insulin levels, and this is precisely why we don't promote the carbohydrate insulin hypothesis on this blog. Insulin is not an obesity hormone. At what rate energy is burned or stored in your body is at the discretion of your entire neuroendocrine system. "System" being the operative word here. So instead of insulin levels, you need to think of insulin function and your entire metabolic state.

Type I diabetics become "wasted" because of uncontrolled catabolism. So, it's not so much that they can't store fat, like everyone else, it's that they can't keep it in storage, as their bodies and everything they eat are being broken down into glucose and ketones at a very rapid rate. Far more rapidly than they can store.