Study: Stop Counting Calories

When you look at the nutrition facts of a food, what do you look at? Is it the calories? Or do you look at the ingredients? For most of us, we have been taught that it is all about calories. Of course we have learned  to monitor intake of processed foods and sugar, but calories always seems to be front and center.

Well, a new study shows that calories may not be very important at all. Heavy people may suffer from a quality problem – not a food quantity problem.

A recent dietary study followed 600 people to see the impact of diet quality. The scientists concluded that people who ate healthier foods fared better than those who ate low-fat, low-carb or calorie restriction plans. This article explains:

…brown rice, barley, steel-cut oats, lentils, lean meats, low-fat dairy products, quinoa, fresh fruit and legumes. The low-carb group was trained to choose nutritious foods like olive oil, salmon, avocados, hard cheeses, vegetables, nut butters, nuts and seeds, and grass-fed and pasture-raised animal foods.

When people stuck to this diet, and avoided chips and other snacks and treats even they were labeled as healthy. Some in the study saw a complete and fundamental change in their lives. Again from the article:

On average, the members of the low-carb group lost just over 13 pounds, while those in the low-fat group lost about 11.7 pounds. Both groups also saw improvements in other health markers, like reductions in their waist sizes, body fat, and blood sugar and blood pressure levels.

This was without changing much else, but in reality a lot was changed, according to the test subjects; they thought differently about how they planned their meals.

-Shane M.