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The number 1 reason counting calories is nonsense is because every calorie is not created equally.
You can’t possibly tell me a cracker, and crackers are some of the worst highly processed foods filled with chemicals you can find, and an apple have an equivalent quality of calorie.
If your goal is 1200 calories a day and you have one double cheese burger, fries and coke, can you tell me you’re done for the day, and on top of that, eating 1200 clean calories from whole food will affect your body in the same way?
No, of course not, it’s preposterous to think that. But here’s the issue, we do every single day. We pick up a box of garbage, look at the calories and since it’s 100 calories or less per serving, not even understand that one serving is half the box, we think it’s a good choice and carry on with our day.
We need to start reading the ingredients in every single thing we put in our bodies. I know this takes longer, and I know it’s less than conventional and I know we want to be trusting people but the truth of the matter is , the food industry doesn’t care for your health in the least. Do you want to hear something that will rock your world, most health food stores care little about your health.
These are businesses that care about shelf life and profit margins. And if you’re looking at real food that will expire on a shelf, there’s a good chance the store won’t carry it for long because they’ll lose money if it sits up there too long.
You have not only the responsibility to read labels and understand what’s in a package but an obligation to. For your health, for your family, for you to live a life in vitality, to understand what a restful night feels like; to feel how whole foods can actually improve your health and give you that energy you’re looking for so you can live life instead of just getting through the day.
Unable to Process Low Quality Calories
Let’s go over another issue when it comes to counting calories. For the most part, we count calories from a box, these calories are entirely different than the calories foods from let’s say a farmers market produce, which is mostly produce, and real living food. The biggest issue here is our bodies don’t recognize substances that aren’t actually food. Our bodies don’t really know what to do with a food coloring that only comes in a number…how ridiculous is that! Our bodies don’t recognize MSG and other toxins that are detrimental to our health but not only that, we either excrete these ‘foods’ right away or we store them as body fat.
So here we are, thinking we’re doing a good thing, counting calories, staying under our goal of maybe 1200, but there’s all low quality calories so even though we have a low count we’re still gaining weight, because our body is storing substances it doesn’t recognize instead of using clean calories as energy, and we feel miserable because we have no energy and continue to accumulate body fat as we store toxic substances we think is food.
Food is the Answer to our Health (from nutrients not empty calories)
I believe food is the answer to our health, I’m talking about real food, plant base whole food, nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, roots, grains, lentils, beans and more. I’m not against meat but I’m talking about whole food here. I believe food can improve our health; I believe food heals, prevents and cures us if we allow it. And the truth is, we don’t allow it. As soon as an issue pops up, we run to the doctor and get prescription, as soon as our nose runs we hit the pharmacy isle instead of letting our body do exactly what it’s done for more generations than I can count. As a society we’ve never been more ill, we’ve never been prescribed more prescription drugs and above all else our bodies have lost the ability to heal, which we can still very well do with food.
We can make a change, each and everyone of us can, we just need to put in the effort, we need to educate our children and we need to start working towards prevention instead of treatment.
Related link to Counting Calories