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Why the Calorie is NOT King

Today in the office I had the calorie conversation again . . . three times.  We have an entire society with a very influential health and fitness industry built around the almighty calorie.  Has it helped? Looking at our 5 year obesity outcomes.  It hasn’t helped a bit.  In fact, it is worse.  In 1985 only 19% of U.S. adults were obese.

Obesity 2011
U.S. Obesity Adult 2011
Obesity 2014
U.S. Adult Obesity 2014

In 2014, 34.5% of U.S. adults were obese.  The numbers this year are approaching 35.6%   You can see the dramatic increase in obesity by 1-3% every year for the last 5 years in the CDC images above.

For over 50 years we have been told that caloric restriction and fat restriction is the solution.  But by the numbers above, the 58 million people in the U.S. utilize a gym or health club to burn off those calories aren’t seeing the success that they should be expecting.

Why?  Because the calorie is NOT king.  What do I mean by that?  We don’t gain weight because of the thermogenic dogma we’ve been taught for the last 50 years.  Our weight gain is driven by a hormone response to food.   Hear more about why the calorie is NOT king on tonight’s PeriScope.  You can Katch it here with all the live stream comments and hearts at Katch.me/docmuscles.

Or you can watch the video without the comments here: