Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
March 2006
Oh, the frustration of counting calories! And how futile! Multiple studies make it clear that no matter how intelligent, dedicated or conscientious we may be, our estimate of our daily intake of calories is likely to be off by as much as 50 percent. An eyeball estimate isn't even close to a nutritionist's measurement that uses calibrated spoons, cups and food scales.
It's not just calories in that matter, but calories out. Is it easy to count the calories that you burn? You'll find calorie-expenditure charts in any of a thousand books on exercise but those tables are usually a one-size-fits-all, with the disclaimer that they only describe a person of average weight. Anyone that has used a treadmill or stair climbing machine that has a calorie monitor knows the feeling at the end of a sweaty workout: "Is that all?"
Being off by a few calories may not seem to be important, but on a cumulative basis it is, which is why we fall victim to creeping obesity. The person who takes in only 20 more calories per day than he burns off, the equivalent of about one-third of an Oreo cookie, will gain 22 pounds in 25 years. On an average intake of 2000 calories a day that's only 1 percent.
Given those grim calculations, how is it possible that from the Stone Age until the middle of the last century, most humans have not been obese? The answer is that we have the same control mechanism within us that animals in the wild do: a self-regulating appetite. Animals eat until they are satisfied. We do too. After we begin a meal our appetite-control mechanism takes about 20 minutes before it signals the brain that we don't need to eat any more. Unfortunately, much of our diet consists of calorie-dense foods like refined starch, saturated fat and sugar-laden soft drinks. In fact, liquid calories hardly register at all. In 20 minutes we can pack in a lot more than our sedentary lifestyle burns off.
Except for meat, most of our ancestors' food was calorie-sparse. Fruits, roots and vegetables in those days contained lots of stomach-filling fiber and not nearly as much starch and sugar as modern supermarket varieties. There was no three-meal-a-day plan back then either, so they ate when they were hungry and stopped when they met their energy needs.
With a little planning we can come close to imitating what our Stone Age ancestors did. The most obvious means is to buy only calorie-sparse foods (green, leafy vegetables, lean meats, seafood, whole-grain baked goods) and to leave calorie-dense foods (fatty meats, pastry, cookies, sugary treats, soft drinks) at the supermarket.
It's not so hard to burn off the extra calories that creep into your meal plan. Use more stairways and fewer elevators; park farther from your destination; drive past the car wash instead of through it and do the job yourself; get a motorless lawnmower; walk the dog twice a day instead of only once. You can surely find those 20 calories every day. Just don't spend much time thinking about them.
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D. is the author of Health Secrets of the Stone Age, Better Life Publishers 2005. Contact him at drphil@stoneagedoc.com.