Nutritional Heresy №3: You Can’t Burn Calories, Because They Don’t Exist

How it works, in the real world

Maria Cross

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Calories don’t exist, other than in our heads and on paper. That probably explains why calorie restriction as a weight loss method has always failed spectacularly.

Calories provide a form of measurement, like inches or miles. The concept of a calorie was created to measure the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1º Celsius. It applies perfectly to, say, an internal combustion engine. Not so much the human body.

The food you eat is broken down until it ultimately becomes a unit, or ‘currency’ of energy that the body can burn. That unit is called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP is produced within the mitochondria of each cell via a process called the electron transport chain, and various nutrients are key to that process.

Without those nutrients, which include B complex, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, zinc, and Coenzyme Q10, there may be mitochondrial dysfunction. You can’t burn ATP if there is mitochondrial dysfunction.

Burning ATP is not, however, just a matter of providing the right nutrients. It’s also about the efficient functioning of glands, hormones and biological systems. Not to mention your circadian rhythm.

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Maria Cross

MSc. Registered nutritionist, specialising in gut and mental health. OUT NOW! My new book, How to Feed Your Brain. mariacrossnutrition @mariacross