A Worthy Rant.

Over the last month I have had variations of the same conversation with many people. Some kids, some teenagers, some adults.

Nevertheless, the same conversation.

Me: “Hey ____ how’s your workout going?”

Person working out: “Good, but

It typically starts out like this…

I’m not burning enough calories”

Or like this

Me: “I noticed you added a few extra calories on these two days last week? Any reason in particular?”

Client: “I burned 900 calories in my Peloton class so I added a few extra drinks on Friday night”

Or this one

Me: “Hey _____ whats on the docket for your training today?”

Personal at the gym: “Whatever burns the calories I’m going to eat later”.

They all lead to the same conversation.

What the fuck is a calorie.

Let's start with what Google has to say about it.

Noun. The energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 1 °C

Interesting. No reference to food. So where did calories get lumped with food?

Let's ask Google again. Here’s what shows up when you type in “define calorie food”.

A calorie is a unit of energy. When you hear something contains 100 calories, it's a way of describing how much energy your body could get from eating or drinking it.

Notice the first sentence. A unit of energy. A calorie is a unit of measurement.

An inch is an inch. A pound is a pound. A mile is a mile.

Are some inches squiggly lines and some straight lines? Yep.

Does a pound of feathers look different than a pound of rocks? Yep.

Are some miles up hill and some downhill? You bet your ass they are.

Taking that same notion of ‘calorie’ as a unit of measurement, this is why you see ‘calories burned’ on machines, wearable devices, and heart rate monitors. It's a reference to the amount of energy your body used to achieve the task.

When you work out, the number of calories burned doesn’t make the workout any more or less beneficial, effective, or productive.

And when you eat, the number of calories is only relative to the total number your body needs to function.

50-cent phrase of the day- Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is that number your body needs to function. There you learned something in this rant.

When you eat, the calories consumed is a reference to the energy that substance provides to the body.

A certain number of calories isn’t good or bad. It’s a measurement.

When it comes to weight loss or weight gain, the end result is a deficit (weight loss) or surplus (weight gain) of calorie balance.

That’s enough nutrition talk.

So these conversations I find myself in, always come back to this sentiment.

Calories don’t dictate anything other than your total output. It has nothing to do with the food you can eat later. It has nothing to do with how ‘badass’ you are in the gym. And it probably doesn’t off-set the food choices later, especially if that food choice is alcohol (email me if you want the science on that, I’ll spare you in the newsletter).

So, I don’t know who needs to hear this, but here it goes.

A calorie is a unit of measurement. That’s all. It’s part of a bigger puzzle. But it’s not the finished product.

There. I said it. No more rants.

Keep kicking ass. You got this

Have a great week everyone,

Casey