Obesity professor explains 5 reasons why calories don't count and what to focus on instead | Professor Giles Yeo
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Why do calories on food labels often mislead us about nutrition?
I'm Dr. Rupey and on this show I help you feel more in control of your health through food and lifestyle medicine. The next time you look at the back of a pack of food or read a nutritional breakdown of a recipe online and think to yourself, gosh, that is so high in calories. I want you to remember these five things that Professor Jazz Yo is going to talk us through today, including why calorie labels don't necessarily reflect the energy you actually absorb, and how nutrient quality and the balance. Of fat, protein, and carbohydrates also impacts this. Giles wrote an incredible best-selling book, Why Calories Don't Count, and works as a professor of molecular neuroendocrinology, researching and lecturing on eating behavior and obesity at the University of Cambridge.
Listen to the end as we debunk healthy quote unquote food options and talk through three strategies to lose. and maintain a healthy weight instead of calorie counting. If you have someone in your life that is obsessed with calorie counting, this is the listen for them. Professor Giles Yo, I want you to imagine someone who goes onto an Instagram post and sees this delicious recipe, right? Olive oil, avocado, nuts. But then they look at the calorie count and they figure it out and they're like, oh my gosh, this calorie count is so high. If I eat this, I'm gonna put on weight. I'm this person. You have about an hour to educate me on all the reasons as to why calories. don't necessarily count. So Why should we not be counting?
calories. You know, whenever I talk about these things about whether or not we should be counting calories, people think I'm anti-physics. Yeah. You know, like I'm not anti-physics. I I I do understand that like 200 calories of chips is twice the amount as 100 calories of chips. Yeah. Okay. I think the moment you begin to take these calorie counts, because they're one-dimensional, that that they only measure the amount, broadly speaking. Then the moment you start to compare different types of food, y to to your point, when you look at calorie dense foods, such as for any number of different reasons, such as nuts and olive oil and avocados, then how are you gonna compare that to a donut? Yeah. or or to pure sugar or to uh a a can of sugary beverage.
And that doesn't make any sense. And I think ultimately, in in in as a top line summary, Well calories will give you one piece of information and that's the amount of food, but they're completely nutrient blind. So so they don't tell you about the macronutrients. So carbs, fat, uh uh protein, and they certainly don't tell you uh fiber, and they certainly don't tell you anything about the micronutrients, and they certainly don't tell you uh anything about sugar salt um or any anything else that is there. So that's the summary. Yeah. About why I think that while we do worship the Calorie, I I think there's A zillion better ways of of actually trying to find healthy food because that's what we're trying to do, improving our diets.
Yeah, yeah. I think that's a a really good kicking off point. And I think we'll come to it a little bit later when we talk about strategies. If not the calorie, then what else? But what I'm hearing from you uh off the get-go is it doesn't reflect nutrient quality, i.e. the balance of macronutrients, the micronutrients as well, and uh how this has an effect on your physiology. So that's almost like point number one. It ignores nutrient quality. Yep. Great. Um outside of nutrient quality, what else is there about calories uh as it pertains to how it doesn't actually offer as much information as one has been led to believe?
Okay, so aside from the fact that they're nutrient blind, I think the issue with focusing on just one single number, because it is a single number, that People have been led to believe for actually quite a long time. So people have been calorie counting since the 1920s. People just don't don't don't know this. The first calorie counter in the 1920s was a a doctor, a Californian doctor, female Californian doctor in the 1920s, which was incredibly rare.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do calories on food labels often mislead us about nutrition?
0:00–10:42
2
How does the single‑number calorie view ignore nutrient quality and absorption?
10:42–21:29
3
What role do protein, fiber, and free sugars play in true caloric availability?
21:29–32:30
4
Why are whole foods like nuts, avocado, and seeds more satiating than their processed equivalents?
32:30–41:24
5
How does stress affect our eating habits and what can we do about it?
41:24–52:52
6
What are the practical strategies for maintaining a healthy weight without counting calories?
52:52–1:01:36
7
How do time‑restricted eating and intermittent fasting influence metabolism and weight control?
1:01:36–1:09:42
8
What final advice should listeners keep in mind about food, variety, and calorie counting?
1:09:42–1:20:41
Speakers
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