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E26: Calories vs Nutrients - How a calorie-focused approach clouds the true meaning of health and nutrition
55 Plays1 year ago
Weight, health, and nutrition have had a lot of overlapping considerations over the years.
If we keep engraining this correlation between weight and health, and calories and weight, we create a calorie obsession vs nutrient understanding. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.
Weight and health, let’s be clear, are not mutually inclusive, nor are they mutually exclusive, and when we go down rabbit holes of black-and-white narratives with the two, we feed a lot of fear, misconceptions and confusion around what the hell to do for our own selves and health.
So let’s get into this
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Eating Between the Lines'
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Eating Between the Lines. I am your host, Therese Martinez, and I am so happy to have you here. If you want to untangle yourself from diet culture conditioning and get appropriate, actionable options to nourish your unique life and body, I'm going to dive deep into the nuanced spectrum of health to help you figure out what to prioritize in your journey
00:00:25
Speaker
without getting trapped in the extreme ideology of health optimization or total complacency. I am here to help you apply the science effectively, not rigidly, and get you feeling better in your body and mind.
Surgery Experience and Reflections
00:00:40
Speaker
Here is how to eat between the lines. Hello, hello. Welcome back to eating between the lines.
00:00:52
Speaker
I am really excited about the turn in weather up here in the Pacific Northwest. Spring has definitely sprung. I am less excited about the fact that I did have to have surgery on my wrist last Friday. So I will be out officially out for the summer for one of my favorite sports and volleyball. But with that said,
00:01:17
Speaker
I am very amazed at the wild world of surgery. It was quite an experience. I was super nervous going in, honestly, a little bit more nervous for rehab, but there were the nerves kind of through the procedure as well.
00:01:35
Speaker
At least like the process of getting the surgery and the decision to get it and all of that was probably more nerve wracking than actually being there. But ultimately it was a very interesting experience. It kind of reminded me of like an airport.
00:01:49
Speaker
Right. So like you check in and then go through like, quote TSA, where they have all these questions or making sure everything's all good to go. And you're kind of around all these other people that are doing the same thing, getting ready to go into surgery, sort of listening, maybe eavesdropping a little to the other surgeries that are happening or were about to happen around me. And then you go in and.
00:02:13
Speaker
You get anesthesia and you just don't remember anything until you wake up and then you're all bandaged up and getting out the door and it's like nine 30 AM. And then they just do that all day, every day. It's wild. Had no idea that that was what that world was like. And that was just one orthopedic surgery center in Spokane, Washington, right? Like happens all the time. So anyways, it is an interesting world.
Weight vs Nutrition Confusion
00:02:39
Speaker
So I do have a bit of recovery to get through, but
00:02:43
Speaker
Ultimately it will all be okay. So I'm hoping everybody else is getting excited for what's to come with summer too. So today's topic I find just wildly important when it comes to sifting through a lot of the noise out there around nutrition, health, and weight. So,
00:03:12
Speaker
Weight and health and nutrition have had a lot of overlapping considerations over the years. Now, this is not the specific episode. It's not on weight stigma and fat phobia, though extremely important considerations in the discussion overall.
00:03:29
Speaker
But today instead, I want to talk about how the lions are blurred between weight and nutrition and how foundations of nutrition get lost in the weeds of narratives around weight. So I want to do this from a lens of looking at nutrition and the functions of nutrients in the body. And I want to also look at how what a person consumes affects body composition.
00:03:57
Speaker
If we keep ingraining this correlation between weight and health and calories and weight, we create a calorie obsession versus nutrient understanding. They are not the same. They get very passionate and equally frustrated when this is not clear to the public. So.
00:04:22
Speaker
Weight and health are not mutually inclusive, nor are they mutually exclusive. I want people to understand that as well. And when we go down rabbit holes of black and white narratives with the two, we feed a lot of fear, misconceptions, and confusion around what the hell to do for our own selves and health.
00:04:46
Speaker
So let's get into this.
Understanding Caloric Needs and Metabolism
00:04:47
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If we take a look at what I consider these two umbrella ranges of needs for the human body, we have the first one, calorie slash energy needs. I kind of use calorie and energy synonymously. And number two, we have nutrient needs.
00:05:05
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The first one means that we all have a minimum calorie and energy demand for our bodies to function, right? If we are under that demand, we will have issues. These can manifest in a lot of ways, poor functioning in the body related to energetics, certain disease dates, metabolic health, poor performance, poor recovery, issues with menstrual cycles, issues with libido, brain fog, I mean, there's tons
00:05:33
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of manifestations of issues when people do not consume enough food. Generally speaking, enough energy for their body.
00:05:42
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Now, how does a person know what this minimum is? So there are a few ways to calculate needs through formulas. And while these are tools, I do find that they have a lot of limitations. So many of these formulas you'll find in applications like MyFitnessPal, where there is a formula for height, weight, and sex.
00:06:09
Speaker
And it pumps out a number that is called your basal metabolic rate. And then it will take that number. Your basal metabolic rate is what your body burns just by existing in this world, right? So we are using calories all the time. I think a lot of people just associate exercise with burning calories, which is just not true. Like.
00:06:31
Speaker
Everything we do all the time involves utilizing energy, right? Your cardiovascular system, cardio respiratory system, cell turnover, immunity. Like there is so much going on in your body all the time. And so you need calories. You need energy for your body to function.
00:06:50
Speaker
Now what happens after that number is established is then it goes through another formula with your activity level. And so then your activity level is essentially just a particular quotient that is applied that adds calories to your basal metabolic rate. And based off of your activity level, it adds a certain amount and then boom, now you have these calorie needs for
00:07:19
Speaker
maintenance of the body that you have. And if you want to get into a caloric deficit and lose X amount of pounds per week, it will subtract 3,500 calories per pound of body weight divided by seven. You know, and then additionally, if you want to lose more than a pound a week, it will continue to subtract from there. You can see that that has potential problems. If a person says they want to lose five pounds a week, that's going to put you in a far too great of a caloric deficit.
00:07:49
Speaker
And also it just doesn't know you, right? There are certain differences with body composition that can highly impact your basal metabolic rate, such as lean body tissue, which is more metabolically active than adipose and fat tissue, meaning it kind of utilizes more calories than fat tissue. And there is a huge genetic component to what your metabolic rate is. Those are not taken into consideration when it comes to utilizing a formula such as this, not to mention that calorie deficit,
00:08:19
Speaker
can be super problematic, right? The formulaic nature of this is taking the person out of the equation, which is somewhat ironic, right? So I really tread lightly when working with patients and utilizing formulas like this. I'm a much bigger proponent for looking at the quality of the food one consumes and getting more in touch with how you feel in your body versus getting preoccupied by what formulas pump out.
00:08:45
Speaker
But sometimes it can be a starting point and ballpark range, especially if someone is really under eating. Sometimes it can highlight, you know, what their body actually needs might be a little bit higher. So minimum range calorie needs. Okay. The fact that this is a range means that there's an upper tier, right? Now that upper tier is a little gray. So I like to explore different ways to gauge
00:09:15
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this upper amount of intake.
Importance of Nutrient Intake
00:09:19
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And I feel like it's far better as a professional in the field to gauge calorie insufficiencies versus a potential quote surplus because of this gray area.
00:09:34
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So meaning I like to leave it up to the individual when it comes to the amount of calories they consume on that upper end. And I like to help them gauge that based off of how they feel. So if I, for example, and feel pretty full at every single meal and I'm just eating in a way that makes me just feel kind of heavy and sluggish and unable.
00:10:04
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like, you know, I feel like there's a lack of lightness almost in my body. And that's not a literal meaning, right? It's just kind of more a no bloating, energized lightness than the literal meaning.
00:10:19
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And if I'm not honoring my fullness or being very mindful with my consumption, it can lead to these feelings of discomfort. And so I like to definitely get more in tune with my body and help people get more in tune so they can work on gauging their needs. And especially on that upper end, because everybody is just different with that. Many people gauge this surplus of intake.
00:10:43
Speaker
as a person gaining more weight. But what is that really? I'll get to discussing this in a little bit more detail. But if you kind of just consider the fact that bodies come in all shapes and sizes and healthy bodies can also come in all shapes and sizes as the definition of health is being free from illness or injury. And there are bodies of all shapes and sizes that are healthy. Then always correlating weight gain and quote too many calories with
00:11:13
Speaker
Not being healthy is just not true because too many is just too hard to define. The second range looks at nutrients. When we consider our body's needs in the realm of nutrients, I want you to think about, you know, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, fibers, amino acids, the building blocks of the food that we consume.
00:11:36
Speaker
Nutrients have phenomenal roles in the body. They are the things that make everything work. Now, some nutrients we can make and some we need to consume. Think about legitimate nutrient deficiencies. Like if I don't have enough vitamin C, I will have scurvy, right? There are.
00:11:55
Speaker
there are disease states with legitimate micronutrient deficiencies. And certain other things like if I don't have enough calcium, it can lead to osteoporosis or other less palpable deficiencies like vitamin D, magnesium, or iron being paired up next to a broad symptom picture of lower energy. There are legitimate minimum needs of nutrients, right? So we have that lower tier.
00:12:22
Speaker
I think it can be challenging for people to know where they land with how they are doing in terms of food consumption with their micronutrient needs, but we'll get into how to figure that out a little bit later. So I don't think it's rocket science to consider the fact that we all have minimum needs of nutrients, but many times issues can arise chronically or acutely when we do not consume sufficient nutrients and they can be a little sneaky.
00:12:52
Speaker
For example, a common one to consider is energy kind of mentioned this a little bit before, where maybe we are not consuming sufficient nutrients to help promote metabolic pathways or that support enzymatic interactions to create more energy in the body.
00:13:09
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Maybe we're used to feeling a certain way, so it doesn't seem as problematic as something that manifests like scurvy, right? There is such a range of energy and energetics out there that people feel they are okay or that they maybe just don't have a contrast of what they could feel like. But perhaps if a person starts prioritizing consuming certain nutrients that help facilitate better energy production like iron and B vitamins, they may start to feel a little bit
Targeting Health Issues with Nutrition
00:13:37
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different.
00:13:37
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This is called increasing nutrient density, right? They may see a little bit of a difference with how they can feel. Other examples might include wanting to improve skin health and then focusing on things like vitamin E and collagen.
00:13:52
Speaker
or gut health and focusing on things like. Glutamine and fiber, but also, you know, if you've ever tried it, just isolating any of these ingredients oftentimes doesn't work. I mean, I think about supplements often, right? Where if I'm just having probiotics or just taking a fiber supplement.
00:14:14
Speaker
that oftentimes won't necessarily be sufficient enough if I have chronic constipation and I'm not dialing in the other components to my diet and health that may also provide more regular bowel movements. And so it isn't so cut and dry to add just a single nutrient to expect everything to change because the body works so symbiotically with all the nutrients.
00:14:39
Speaker
But this can provide an illustration for folks to understand nutrient importance in the diet and how they impact overall functions in the body on a whole. So we're seeing the importance of these individual nutrients versus just seeing food as calories. Okay. Something else to consider when it comes to nutrients or certain conditions that you may have manifested are those programs out there selling you
00:15:07
Speaker
specific interventions of nutrition for your specific condition, right? Okay. So things like programs out there for PCOS, hormone health, gut health, et cetera. What are these programs doing? I've seen so many of these programs. So they largely focus on foundations of health management of blood sugar, which I've talked about this before, but essentially that just really impacts your patterns of intake, which can impact regulation of overall intake.
00:15:38
Speaker
In addition to, I mean, other benefits, but blood sugar management, balancing meals. So that focuses on getting adequate nutrients and getting more whole foods into the diet, having a regular eating pattern, which can also help with hormonal health and other things like that. And then.
00:15:57
Speaker
They dial up certain nutrients based off the specific condition you are interested in resolving by utilizing food and supplements. And sometimes there's lifestyle interventions too. So this goes to show that, you know, the focus is what we talk about often, right? Macronutrients, which influence patterns and micronutrients, which influence conditions. So if we have.
00:16:21
Speaker
this lower end of needs than the goal with nutrition is to add nutrients into the diet. So we're adding vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, fibers, et cetera.
00:16:31
Speaker
to increase the nutrient load to make the body function better. So I did say that there's a range and this upper tier is also a little gray. I mean, there are legitimate considerations around nutrient toxicity that generally only happen when a person is doing some form of supplementation in addition to potential intake, or if there is a specific condition where a person does not metabolize something and there again is a buildup or something like that. But,
00:17:00
Speaker
I am more so talking about like, how do you kind of titrate your own intake?
00:17:05
Speaker
Do I need to get one serving, two serving, three, four, five, 15 servings of vegetables a day? What's my amount? What's appropriate for me with the fruit, the vegetables, the meat? Do I even need to consume fruits and vegetables? Do I get all my nutrients from meat, right? Like, or vice versa. So we kind of play this game with nutrition and I think wellness culture does this a lot.
00:17:30
Speaker
where there is this idea of optimal intake and maximizing nutrient load and absolutely everything that you consume. Now, while this can be great, it also may not be absolutely essential for someone to thrive because we also have the other pillars of health and we have to be realistic with what is in a person's resources and capacity
00:17:52
Speaker
to apply recommendations. Now I do get the argument that perhaps it's not in some people's resources, but for those where it is or where they have an option to prioritize nutrition in this, in this regard, then can't they take advantage of recommendations if it is truly more optimal. And I just like to consider here again, the other pillars of health.
00:18:16
Speaker
And honestly, it just kind of comes down to the individual and what they actually want to and need to prioritize. So someone may be able to prioritize high nutrient dense foods all the time, but they may not be able to move their body very much. Some people may be able to be with community a lot more and have a lot of hobbies that really improve their stress.
00:18:38
Speaker
And whereas others have really high stress and don't have a lot of resolutions for that at this time, but they might be able to prioritize more healthful nutrition. So I encourage people to explore what they have the capacity for and then troubleshooting solutions for the pillars that they are also struggling with. I've seen the people that often hyper manipulate their intake.
Finding a Personal Nutrition Plan
00:19:02
Speaker
because they are either super concerned about being healthy or they want to lose weight, but they don't like move their body at all. And I just find that if a person is so consumed about what they eat, preoccupied about what they eat and not considering time spent moving and maybe other pillars, it is a hard needle to move in terms of improving gauges and markers of health for them.
00:19:28
Speaker
So with that all said, I mean, if a person has the resources, the ability to prioritize highly nutrient dense foods all the time, sure. But part of this is really understanding that this is trial and error and you may not need to consume wildly nutrient dense foods all of the time in order to optimize your health because of the other influences of health, right?
00:19:55
Speaker
And the fact that your body may not need that nutrient load to function optimally, but by all means, I mean, go for it. Like if you want to, but I just previously, I have my personal experience, my massive professional experience seeing.
00:20:14
Speaker
the slippery slope that comes with that preoccupation of needing to optimize absolutely everything and then disregarding other pillars of health or just having psychological and mental tax on the psyche and just be super, super impacted. So the other thing I like to think about in this is that, you know, a shift from something like the standard American diet to
00:20:41
Speaker
increasing whole foods, balancing meals to promote better patterns of intake.
Transition to Whole Foods
00:20:46
Speaker
This is a big jump in what we see with improvement and markers of health. Couple that with consistent movement and it's pretty impressive with what we can see just from a basic transition. It's the consistent application that generally gets folks in addition to the neglect of the other pillars, but the consistent application oftentimes is so challenging because
00:21:11
Speaker
There's unrealistic expectations for folks in addition to a lack of skill set on how to utilize their own resources like time and finances, et cetera, and also ability to prepare foods that are absolutely delicious.
00:21:30
Speaker
that create that challenge to apply those balanced regular whole healthy meals on a regular basis. So if we're thinking about kind of, okay, standard American diet to more whole healthy foods, balancing meals, trying to incorporate in diverse intake of different ingredients to optimize a little bit more nutrition. Ah.
00:21:56
Speaker
I want to say improve nutrition. For some reason, the word optimized is kind of rubs me the wrong way. So improving nutrient density, right? We get a big jump and from there, there may not be such drastic changes that people have to make, right? You can play around with it though. And you have to understand your own symptom pictures as well. And, or, you know, get a professional's opinion with what may be more or less beneficial for you to increase.
00:22:25
Speaker
because now we titrate. Now it's like, okay, so you did work from going from mostly processed foods.
00:22:32
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or, you know, lacking X, Y, and Z food groups or other foods that have higher concentrations of other nutrients. So, okay, you're shifting towards those a little bit more. To now, how do you move up from there? What do you need to do? And what do you have the capacity to trial out? And how do you define health? Because all of that is going to be reason to continue the trial and error process. So if we bring this back,
00:23:02
Speaker
To the original topic at hand, looking at caloric intake and looking at nutrient intake, we see that there's difference in varying levels of how many and what types of nutrients can impact a person's health. And there are minimal needs for energy and calories that also impact a person's health. On the upper tier, there is largely more so a consideration of the type of food
00:23:26
Speaker
and lack of nutrients in that higher intake versus just the fact that it is a higher intake of food and or associations with higher body weight. So what do you do with this information? This is where it's really important to understand your own definition of health and what you're wanting for your body. This is where it's helpful to know your own capacity for application because when it comes down to it, your job is to absolutely nourish yourself.
00:23:52
Speaker
Whatever that looks like to you, minimally speaking in terms of calories, right? I just want to make sure that you are fed enough and then finding and seeing what you can do in the nutrient range scale and how you can titrate that to figure out how you feel your best according to what you want. And maybe other markers of health, like lab values and recommendations for preventative care.
Balancing Calories and Nutrients
00:24:17
Speaker
For example, working on in corporations of more antioxidant rich foods to help with potential inflammatory responses in the body. Higher fiber foods to also work with gut health, inflammation, and cholesterol levels. All of these things can help in prevention of disease states. So if a person cares about that, which by the way, you don't owe your health to anyone also.
00:24:43
Speaker
So how do you know where you land with your nutrition and how you can?
00:24:47
Speaker
you know, balance intake with overall energy and calories. And this is where a professional would be super helpful. Internet is kind of like the Wild West, right? There's just a lot going on in there and you can do your research. I just would highly recommend reaching out to someone that, you know, has been professionally trained and that you connect with. I mean, that's huge. I always recommend kind of following someone for a little while or just really getting and looking into their approach.
00:25:16
Speaker
And maybe if you're able to read some testimonials or reviews, talk to the people, I always personally really like to talk to people that have worked with someone that I'm interested in working with. There's certain like HIPAA violations. And so of course it all has to be appropriate there, but something to consider. I have a lot of recommendations for dietitians that nourish if you are interested in getting input for some dietitians at nourish that specialize in a whole slew of conditions, but
00:25:45
Speaker
It is also important to know either way that this is a trial and error game. And I talk about that with patients all the time. Like there are no magical numbers out there. Like I said before, like the, the basal metabolic rate, these are all estimations. They're all formulaic. And so having an understanding of the fact that this is going to be a little bit of a trial and error game.
00:26:11
Speaker
can be a little deterring for folks, but I also think it can give people a little grace in the process as well. Plus depending on a person's relationship with food, it's not going to be so black and white.
00:26:23
Speaker
This is why prescriptive and blanketed statements out there are not wildly useful. More often than not, they invoke way more fear and confusion. Like some people don't tolerate a ton of fibers, so they focus on other sources of food to get certain micronutrients and they can still have a wonderful thriving body, especially when they cater to other pillars of health and stay proactive with getting their needs.
00:26:47
Speaker
Same thing with someone that eats more animal-based products or someone that is a vegetarian. These are all varying approaches to food intake and there is no quote, right option, but there can certainly be a less nutritious route taken for all of them when not intentional and proactive. So let's just touch back on the calories, the association of eating too much food, big air quotes.
00:27:12
Speaker
Leading to weight gain, leading to poor health, not seeing the full picture. Same thing with eating too little and being in a smaller body, not necessarily having better health outcomes. We definitely don't talk about that very often. We have variables that impact our health. Nutrition is one of them and it can play a huge role in minimizing variables that negatively impact your health, but it is not the only thing.
00:27:39
Speaker
And it is up to you to figure out how you can titrate your intake to be the version you want to be as a healthy individual, whatever that means to you. I just want to make sure you understand what can impact your health and how we may or may not have control over the outcome. If we get too caught up.
00:28:02
Speaker
In weight and calories, we lose sight of the foundations of nutrition, which are the nutrients. The nutrients make the body world go round. And this is where I really like to help people work on application of addition of nutrients into their diet versus getting caught up in numbers all the time.
00:28:27
Speaker
And getting preoccupied by this demand to control your body because of the narrative that it is for your health.
Conclusion and Further Engagement
00:28:39
Speaker
All right, y'all reach out. If you have any other questions, please leave a review. If you.
00:28:46
Speaker
like this podcast. It does wonders, wonders, wonders for the podcast and also share the episode. If it meant something to you, I really like talking about this information. I want the messages to get out to as many people as possible and you know, it's free. It's free. So if you feel like anyone would benefit from this,
00:29:07
Speaker
Please feel free to share. Talk to you next time. Thank you so much for listening today. If you found this information valuable, please share this episode and give it a review. They truly help a ton. If you want additional support and information, you can head over to my website, teresemartinezrd.com where you can snag my free guide on how to improve your hunger signals. Get on my email list for regular juicy content.
00:29:33
Speaker
or apply for the next round of my signature program, Restoring Nutrition Intuition. Otherwise, Instagram at teresmartinasrd or my Facebook group Fed Fit and Fad Free Nutrition with Teres are always places for more content and support. Until next time.