Calories; A Quick Lesson in Leaning Out or Bulking Up

“Food is not just fuel, it’s information. It talks to your DNA and tells it what to do.” - Dr. Mark Hyman

Think of calories like gas in a car, to go from place to place you’ll need some fuel to power that movement. Quality is very important when it comes to longevity and peak performance, what you put into your engine will affect it throughout. 

The quantity is also very important because you will always need enough fuel to keep you on the road. Not enough fuel means that the car will spurt and sputter with no power behind the accelerator. 

While having too much fuel means that you’ll need to store the excess.

If it can’t all fit in the gas tank then you’ll need to fill up some gas cans and keep them in the trunk for later use. Which will only add unnecessary weight. 

Our bodies work the same way. 

So what is a calorie?

The actual definition of a calorie is “a unit of energy equivalent to the heat energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 °C.” The reason I added this definition is for the simple fact that a calorie is just a way to measure how much energy is going into our bodies and how much of it we are actually using.

A calorie is just like gas in a car, we measure the energy in our car with gallons but we use calories to measure the energyin our bodies. That means we need to make sure we are never overfilling our tank if we don’t want to have any extra weight in our trunk.

If that does happen we need to burn off some of the excess fuel by taking more drives and filling up less. Over time we will naturally use the extra gas we kept in the trunk before we need to stop for more.

Eat Less + Move More = Weight Loss

Eat More + Move Less = Weight Gain

To lose weight you need to be in a caloric deficit, or better yet an energy deficit. That means every day you are burning more energy than what you put in. 

Over time that is going to result in less body mass because your body will get rid of all the excess weight that was only storing energy for later use. The gas can analogy happens to our bodies too but it’s in the form of fat, which is also stored in our trunk. You already know what I mean.

Fat is just a long-term storage site for calories spread throughout our body so we can access it whenever we need to. This was meant to be protective since we haven’t always had grocery stores supplying our food all day every day.

When we had to hunt and forage for all of our food it was important to keep some extra energy strapped to us in case we were unsuccessful. When a surplus of food was available the body would use what was necessary to refuel and store the rest as fat. 

Today we move less and eat more so there is always a surplus available to be stored away for later use. Only it’s never used so it just accumulates.

This isn’t always a bad thing especially if that’s your goal. For those who are trying to gain weight a calorie surplus is going to be required to do so. 

If the desire is to have more muscle then more energy is needed to sustain not only the extra activity but also the recovery. This is why competitive bodybuilders go through phases of “bulking” and “cutting.” 

You may not want to look like that but there are still lessons to be learned from the most muscular humans alive. During a “bulk,” they will consume far more calories than their daily expenditure in order to gain as much muscle as possible. 

During a cut they will reduce their calories to a level below their daily expenditure and their weight will naturally come back down. The trick to it is doing it at a rate that reduces the amount of fat that is accumulated during the bulk while maintaining as much muscle as possible during the cut. 

The key factor for both cutting and bulking is the manipulation of calories while keeping exercise constant and consistent.

What burns the most calories?

Everybody always wants to know what kind of exercise will burn the most calories. As you can see from the chart below it’s not exercise that will be creating the biggest deficit in your calorie budget per day. 

Physical activity, whether it is planned and purposeful or just from the usual amount of steps you take on a daily basisonly accounts for 20% of your energy expenditure. 

The biggest calorie burner is your metabolism because it is constantly running day and night. While physical activity plays an important role we will never be as physically active as the internal workings of our body. 

The more we exercise the more we stoke the fire that is always burning inside, but the best part is that even if we didn’t workout our body will naturally burn over 1000 calories a day.

• Distribution of calories burnt per day:
• ~70% BMR: Basal Metabolic Rate (metabolism)
• ~20% Exercise and NEAT: Non-exercise activity thermogenesis
• ~10% Thermic effect of food: the energy required to eat and digest food. Yes, eating food burns calories as it requires muscular contractions and metabolic reactions which need fuel.

Image taken from tdeecalculator.org

I added this chart to illustrate the phrase “you can’t outrun a bad diet,” meaning exercise will be a necessity but it only accounts for a small percentage of the calories burnt per day. If you exercise often but always go over budget with your calories then you’ll never lose weight.

Use your metabolism to your advantage.

Our bodies are always working to stay in a constant state of balance; every breath, heartbeat, and thought we have burns calories because they are utilizing fuel and therefore burning calories. 

If the quantity of food we consume on a daily basis is always exceeding the amount of energy we’re using then we will gain weight.

By understanding that we burn the most calories outside the gym we can better strategize for our consumption rather than our output. 

Keep track of everything that you’re eating so you have a better idea about the amount of energy going in and therefore how much needs to go out.

Does that mean I need to count every calorie?

Yes, but it doesn’t have to be a forever thing. 

Having a baseline and a general idea of what you’re eating is vital to your progress. If you have never done this before then it would be a good idea to do it consistently for a few weeks. 

Over time you’ll start to get a better idea of how many calories you’re eating without tracking every meal. For those who eat pretty much the same thing every day, tracking will be easy because nothing has changed from the last time you tracked it. 

The only time it would be important to track again is if you begin to change the portion sizes or add any sides to your usual meals. As your awareness of common foods you eat grows the less you will have to track in the future because you’ll have a general idea of how much you’re eating.

This can be a tedious process but it is going to be the most important part of reaching your goal weight, whether you want to cut down or build muscle. 

You can’t expect to know what is right for you if you have no idea where you’re starting. It’s just shooting in the dark. 

Is it possible to lose or gain weight without ever tracking your calories? It is, however, your continued progress is going tobe reliant on knowing where you’re at and where you’re going at all times. 

Research has shown that across the lifespan weight gain is directly proportional to how many times someone goes on a diet. That’s because they cut out too many calories than they need to and destroy their metabolism in the process. 

After a while that diet inevitably becomes unsustainable because it’s too restrictive. Once they go back to their old way of eating all the weight comes back, and then some. 

This is because the metabolism slows down when there is less food coming in, but when a surplus of calories is quickly returned the body cannot process it all. So in response more of it will get stored as fat.

The amount as well as the type of food we consume on a daily basis will play a big role in our metabolism.

Are all calories created equal if it’s just energy?

Yes but also no. What you eat matters.

Yes because in the simplest of terms, it’s all energy, however, the difference lies in the source of the calories. Just like when you go to the gas station there are different options based on quality and price, but they’re all serving the same purpose. 

They provide the necessary energy to allow us to drive as far as we would like to go. The difference is you would not fill up a diesel or a high-performance vehicle with regular gas because it’s bad for the engine. 

Treat your body as if it is a high-performance vehicle because the type of fuel you put in will make a big difference in how it runs. 

Buying a Twinkie will not give us the same kind of nutritional value as an extra large banana even though they have roughly the same amount of calories. It’s nearly 135 for the extra large banana and 150 for the Twinkie. 

So while they are similar in the amount of energy they provide there is far more value in choosing the fruit.

Now consider whether you choosing between a fruit, protein, or something that is higher in fat. Again, all of these foods are measured by how many calories they provide but they each have something unique and necessary for the body. 

We need fat and protein sources to optimize recovery and hormonal support, but by having a diet higher in protein we will actually increase our metabolism. This means we will actually burn more calories at rest by eating more calories from protein. 

Think back to the chart showing how our metabolism has the biggest effect on our daily energy expenditure. In this case, not all calories are equal. 

One last point to consider is that certain foods are more calorie-dense than others, meaning for every gram of fat you eat as compared to a carb or protein you’ll consume double the calories. 

So while an avocado may be slightly smaller than an apple, you’re going to make a larger impact on your daily calorie budget by eating the avocado.

• 1 gram of carbohydrate = ~4 calories
• 1 gram of protein = ~4 calories
• 1 gram of fat = ~9 calories
• Avocado = ~240 calories
• Apple = ~95 calories

This is not meant to victimize fat because we need to have fats in our diet for optimal health and well-being. It’s meant to add awareness to your food choices and the effect your diet has on your body and metabolism. 

Not all sources of calories are created equal.

• Summary of main points

  1. A calorie is just a way to measure how much energy is going in and out of your body, like monitoring the gas in your car.
  2. Eat less and move more to lose weight and eat more and move less to gain weight.
  3. Your resting metabolism is going to burn far more calories than exercise but make sure the calories you eat don’t exceed your metabolism.
  4. Counting calories will be necessary to get you moving in the right direction but as you get accustomed to the process it becomes easier to maintain your weight without it.
  5. You need to be aware of how many calories you’re eating per day and what food groups are contributing the most to your daily budget. They will make a big difference in performance.

• Call to action

  • The next time you go to the grocery store look at the nutrition facts labels on different foods you buy. Realize how many calories you would be eating if you ate the whole thing or if you ate half. Notice what foods have the most calories per serving. An important point is to look for the “number of servings per container.” If there are 4 servings per container then you need to multiply the calories at the top by 4. If you only plan on eating half then multiply it by 2.