Fear Of Calories

The caloric law of body composition is a wordy headliner of most lifestyle campaigns and scientific health jargon kicking around since the early fifties that has followed the chronic disease crisis ever since.

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Some people just see numbers like the ones on the scale or a financial statement, others talk about a furnace and piles of coal, something about thermodynamics. Few speak in joules and the citric acid cycle, or dopamine and mitochondria, but when they do are adamant to the dogma.

Plenty new students I interview have several failed attempts at calorie counting as a mean for healthier body composition under their belt, but the theory was wired so deep into their psyche that any other solution is a blasphemy. They are terrified of something unfathomable, like the monsters in the dark of our childhood bedrooms - We cannot see them but we are sure they are there. 

Counting can work but it's not for everyone, and rarely is it sustainable based on conversations with ex-caloric accountants over the years. Should anxious inactive humans throw themselves into restrictive diets and high-intensity exercise for the of caloric expense? Stress is a resource taxing natural state of the body, and just like the oil in our soil we are bound to hit rock bottom when there's nothing left to pump. 

Yo-yo cycles of weight gain and lethargy are symptoms of a broken system with a deficient metabolism. Chronic conditions such as stress, pain, depression, and various sleep disorders drain your body over time. The restriction of supplies to fuel your fight is the last thing you need when you have been at war for years. 

Hard times call for new measures. A corporate executive in the cut-throat world of business and profit would have his head chopped had he sunk the company in a trillion dollar hole after fifty years of service. Perhaps the time has come for health scientists to let the story sit and ferment for a few decades longer. We can check up on it in later. The strategy has not had a significant enough impact to reverse the physical and mental disease epidemic on a global scale. 

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Things have changed since the days of Desormes and Clément. Now, we can keep trying to push a solution that has not stopped the giant for over half a century or move on to updated models. The power is in the hands of the upcoming millennial health force and their patients, clients, or students alike to make a real blow to the epidemic. Better communication will be necessary if we ever want to take down the beast.