Stop burning calories
Metabolism 101. It’s simple, I promise.
Imagine you’re having a barbecue. You have charcoal, lighter fluid, and a pot of water sitting on the grill. Because, we vegans grill water instead of steaks and stuff.
The pot has one kilogram of water. Pretend you don’t live in America and use the metric system like the rest of the world, and pretend you weigh your water instead of measure its volume like the rest of the world.
Ok so it’s time to heat up the water. The charcoal, while barely lit, is emitting heat very slowly, so you dump some lighter fluid on the hot coals — WHOOSH, big flame, and then it’s gone. Pour some more on, WHOOSH, aaaaand it’s gone.
SUCCESS! The charcoal and lighter fluid have teamed up and increased the temperature of the water by one degree Celsius.
What kind of lame ass cook out is this? Are all closet American vegans like this?? Shhhhh….I know a few, but let’s proceed.
So, what just happened? Well, first let’s all understand that a calorie isn’t a thing. It’s a unit of measurement, like a pound, or a gallon, or a meter or a kilogram, or a mile, or a degree, or a Siriometer, or a microfortnight, or a dog year.
A calorie is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius. When referring to food, we use a “kilocalorie” which is (wait for it) 1000 calories that we just call “one calorie”, so it would be the amount of energy required to raise our kilogram of water (wait for iiiit) one degree Celsius.
So — knowing what just happened to our water, did we burn any calories? I don’t recall any calories being poured on the fire. We burned charcoal, and lighter fluid. Importantly and metaphorically here, charcoal burns slowly and lasts much longer than lighter fluid, which burns faster but also depletes more quickly.
Do you see where this is going?
On our bodies, our fat is the charcoal, and our carbohydrates (glycogen in the muscles) is the lighter fluid.
When you do low-intensity activities, like walking or easy swimming, you burn FAT, almost exclusively, because there’s plenty of oxygen available in your blood stream to remain aerobic. The fat being burned produces energy which is measured in calories.
When you do high-intensity activities, like Crossfit, mosh-pitting, or extreme kegel exercises, you burn CARBOHYDRATES, almost exclusively, because the muscles are demanding so much fuel that your heart can’t keep up with the oxygen supply which is required to burn fat, so your muscles pull glycogen locally and use that as the fuel. There isn’t nearly as much fuel there but it burns really fast. It also means that, because oxygen isn’t there, the muscles build up CO2, of which the byproduct is lactic acid (that obnoxious / amazing burning sensation that doesn’t require any topical cream). The carbs being burned produce energy which is measured in what? Calories.
Most of your daily life you burn a combination of fat and carbs. You can train your body to burn more fat instead of carbs, but that’s for a future article which will focus on heart-rate zone training, intensity intervals, and the benefits of lean muscle mass.
To summarize — stop burning calories. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like counting pounds or kilos on the scale, which don’t tell you anything about what is contributing to that weight. I’ve personally trained a 150lb morbidly obese person with around 28% body fat, as well as a a 150lb fitness competitor who had 5.5% body fat. Use common sense, revisit your 8th grade biology notes, and go workout, like right now. Do 20 pushups. Go!
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