THE CALORIE MYTH

The theory of slimming based on the low-calorie approach is without doubt the greatest scientific “fudge”of the 20th century.It is nothing more than a snare, a deception, a dangerous and simplistic hypothesis, lacking any real scientific basis to do so. And yet it has dictated our eating habits for over half a century and now time to change.You have only to look around you to see that the more well upholstered, plump, fat or even obese people are, the more religiously they count the calories they consume everyday. With very few exceptions, anything which has passed for a ”diet” since the beginning of the century, has essentially been based on the low-calorie theory. How misguided can you be! No serious or long-term success can be achieved from such a method. Not to mention the side effects, which can be devastating. At the end of this chapter I will have more to say on the scandalous socio-cultural phenomenon, which has built up around the subject of calories in food. For we have reached a point where what has happened can only be described as mass brainwashing.

The calorie theory is as follows : 

If a particular individual needs 2,500 calories a day and consumes only 2,000, a 500 calorie deficit results. To compensate for the deficit, the body will draw on its fat reserves to find an equivalent amount of energy, and weight loss will result. If, on the other hand, an individual has a daily intake of 3,500 calories when only 2,500 are needed, the excess 1,000 calories will automatically be stored as body fat. The theory is therefore based on the assumption that there is no loss of energy. It is purely mathematical, drawn directly from Lavoisier's theory on the laws of thermodynamics. 

At this point we may well be wondering how it was that prisoners in Nazi concentration camps managed to survive for almost five years on only 700 to 800 calories a day. If the calorie theory was correct, the prisoners should have died once their body fat was used up in other words, within a few months.Similarly, we may wonder how people with big appetites who consume 4,000 to 5,000 calories a day are not fatter than they are (some even remain skinny). If the calorie theory was correct, these hearty eaters would come to weigh 60 to 80 stone within a few years.

Furthermore, how can you explain why some people continue to put on weight even when they reduce their daily calorie intake by eating less? Thousands of people go on gaining weight like this while starving themselves to death.