WHAT IS CALORIE DEFICIT?
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Episode 217:
Show Notes
In this engaging episode of Real Life Medicine, hosts Dr Lucy and Dr Mary take a lighthearted yet insightful dive into the complex world of weight management and calorie counting. Through clever goat analogies and everyday examples, they challenge the long-standing belief that “a calorie is just a calorie.” The conversation breaks down why focusing solely on calorie deficits is an outdated and ineffective strategy for managing weight and health, emphasising the importance of metabolic health, hormonal balance, and the quality of the food we eat.
Goat Analogies
Dr Lucy humorously shares three stories involving goats to illustrate various points. First, she introduces her pet goat, Saffron, who acts more like a dog and loves attention. The second story involves her calling participants in a coaching call “the GOATs” (Greatest Of All Time), which highlights generational differences in understanding modern slang. Finally, Dr Lucy segues into discussing what "gets on her goat," specifically social media influencers promoting the oversimplified concept of calorie counting.
Debunking the Calorie Myth
Dr Mary and Dr Lucy emphasise how the belief in calories as the sole determinant of weight management is outdated and misleading. They discuss how calories were initially defined as a unit of energy—the amount needed to raise the temperature of water by 1°C—and how this oversimplified concept became entrenched in diet culture during the 1960s and 1970s.
The Flaws in Calorie Counting
Several reasons are given for why calorie counting is inaccurate:
- Inaccurate Food Labels: Calorie counts on food labels are based on outdated methods with a 20% margin of error.
- Metabolic Differences: Individual factors like gut microbiome, digestive efficiency, and metabolic conditions make calorie absorption and expenditure vary widely from person to person.
- Thermogenic Effect of Food: Foods like protein and fibre require more energy for digestion, so their “net” calorie contribution is less than raw counts suggest.
- Food Processing: Processed foods often deliver more accessible energy than whole foods, making them more calorie-dense despite label equivalencies.
Insulin Resistance and Energy Accessibility
The discussion dives deeper into how insulin resistance affects weight management. High insulin levels prevent the body from easily accessing stored fat for energy, leading to constant hunger and fatigue, regardless of calorie intake. This scenario perpetuates the myth of “willpower” in weight loss when the real issue lies in metabolic dysfunction.
Complex Hormonal Regulation and Misleading Concepts
The conversation explores the complex interplay of hormones like insulin, ghrelin, and leptin in regulating hunger, satiety, and fat storage. The calorie deficit model oversimplifies this complexity, ignoring factors like hormonal imbalances, stress, and overall metabolic health.
Protein Powders and Misleading Comparisons
Protein powders, which are pre-digested and easier to absorb, are often marketed as weight-loss tools. However, Dr Lucy points out that consuming whole foods like chicken requires more energy for digestion and absorption, leading to higher metabolic activity and lower net calorie intake. This difference is crucial but is often disregarded by calorie-focused diets.
Calorie Analogy with Temperature Regulation
Dr Lucy uses a clever analogy comparing calorie counting to trying to cool a room by aiming for a “degree deficit.” The analogy highlights how unrealistic it is to think of calories in isolation without considering other influencing factors—like insulation, airflow, or metabolic flexibility in the human body.
The Cultural and Historical Entrenchment of Calorie Counting
The doctors stress that while calorie counting became popular due to its simplicity, it’s not grounded in modern science. They argue that weight management should instead focus on metabolic health, nutritional quality, and lifestyle habits that optimise energy usage rather than strictly reducing intake.
The next round of the renowned 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance starts on August 31st! Hurry and join the waitlist here: www.rlmedicine.com/12WMBR
Episode 217:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (0:16) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Mary Barson (00:23) Hello lovely friend Dr Mary here and I am joined by the fabulous, wonderful, amazing Dr Lucy. Lovely Lucy, how are you today?
Dr Lucy Burns (00:12) I am awesome, Miss, thank you for that little intro. If I ever need a booster, I just kind of ring you up and go, can you introduce me?
Dr Mary Barson (00:20) Anytime! anytime!
Dr Lucy Burns (00:23) Anytime. I know. Lovely, I wanted to tell you a little story about things that have been on my mind goats, yes. So there are three goat things that I want to chat to you about. One is that I actually have a goat. Her name is Saffron and she lives out in the paddock. She's the cutest thing and we've had her since she was a bubba. And she's really like a dog. So you toddle out to the paddock and she comes barring up to you. And then if you sit down, she'll hop on your knee. And really she just super loves pats. So she's, she's a good goat. And we were in the last round of the 12 Week Mind Body rebalance in our coaching call. Coaching calls are fun. God, I love them. They are so fun. We were having a hoot, having a laugh. And I said to the peeps, you guys are the goats. And there were all these people going, what, what, what are you talking about? And I realised that not everyone knew what a goat was. And I'm going, and of course the Olympics have just been on. So I'm going, goats, the greatest of all time. And I am saying, you guys are the greatest of all time. I was telling a story about how I'd called my daughter a goat because she'd brought me in a cup of tea and apparently that's very uncool. So don't do that if you're hanging out with Gen Zs or whatever they are.
Dr Mary Barson (01:52) No, you have to embarrass your parents otherwise you're not a parent - You have to embarrass your children otherwise you're not parenting right.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:58) Exactly. So then I was saying to them that, you know, if you guys are the goats and I must be a goat herder. And yes, we all had a big laugh. And then the next day, one of our beautiful participants then put a picture of a whole heap of goats in the Facebook group. And so then this just became this little thing, which is an interesting juxtaposition to my third goat, which is something I spent a fair bit of time, which is getting on my goat. It has been a favourite saying of mine that really gets on my goat. I don't know where that comes from, but honestly, the thing that is getting on my goat at the moment is influencers still talking about calories and that there are people out there with huge followings. massive ability to influence people by giving incorrect information. And that, that gets on my goat It honestly does.
Dr Mary Barson (02:59) Calories has become something that, I think it's just been absorbed into our culture. Everybody believes in calories, like children believe in the tooth fairy. And I think that it has done us a great disservice because it's, let's unpack now why the concept of calories in food, calorie counting, calorie restriction, why it's inaccurate, why it's unhelpful and what are much better ways to approach health and wellness. I just have to say, that we don't even really question what a calorie is, but it's a fascinating story as to how we came to think about foods and how we nourish our body in calories. It's a fairly modern concept, that only been around really took hold in the 1960s, and 1970s, but the concept of calories is just over a hundred years old. And, but what it actually is, it's just a unit of measure and it's the amount of energy required to heat one gram of water by one degree Celsius. So that, that's it. That's just what a calorie is. And it seems like a really abstract and unhelpful thing to think about with the food that we eat. it actually turns out that it is, except that's not how human history has played out. So Lucy, expand a little bit more about, know, calories in food and why everybody cares. That's why they shouldn't.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:37) Yeah. absolutely. I mean, We’ve been sold this story and on its surface, it sounds reasonable that if you eat fewer calories, so you consume fewer calories, then you expend or burn as the favourite phrase seems to be, then you will lose weight. That's the sort of summary of it. And you know, at some level it sounds reasonable, a bit like, you know, if you want to become wealthy, you have to spend less money than you save. But there's a whole heap of stuff. mean, you know, and again, this is not, this is not a wealth creation podcast, but we know that for people who want to create wealth, it's not that simple. You know, it's, there's a whole heap of other things, you know, that look at that. You look at bank fees, you look at investments and you look at interest and all of those are the things that determine ultimately your wealth. And it's a little bit like calories. It sounds so simple, but there's a whole heap of things at play. The first of which is that unlike dollars, which are just a dollar, although I guess maybe we've got world currencies so there is some difference, but a calorie in food, it's not even accurate. So let's
Dr Mary Barson (06:07) No, not the way that we're told, it's not accurate, no.
Dr Lucy Burns (06:10) No. So the other thing that I think is really interesting is that it's the only thing that we like calories are the only thing that we sort of refer to, particularly that phrase calorie deficit, which is another big thing that gets on my goat. If we wanted to use, so calories are a measure of energy, so the unit of energy. If we're talking about heating a room, we would talk about degrees, whether it's Celsius or Fahrenheit. So you talk about degrees. If you want to cool the room, nobody says, I need to cool my room down. I'm just going to be in a degree deficit. Look, people would look at you like, what? I'm just going to be in a degree deficit and that'll cool the room down. And it's like, and if we then move that analogy even a bit further on how that would look, well, then you would turn the heater down. So that's like having less calories. But then you could also open the windows. You might look at the insulation in your roof. You might think about whether you've got a thermogenic mass on your floor. All of those will determine how fast you cool your room down or how fast your temperature deficit becomes effective. Sorry, not your temperature deficit, your degrees deficit.
Dr Mary Barson (07:34) Yeah. Degrees deficit. Yes, that's right. We never use that, know, turn it up. You know, I want to hurt surplus of that, of that noise. It's not what we say at all. But that idea of also being in it, you we don't, we don't. Calorie deficit, since calories are a unit of energy, then we could say an energy deficit, a kilojoule deficit. And actually human bodies are never in an energy deficit whilst we are living. We're not. The definition of being alive is that we transform energy from one form into another. That's what alive things do so that we can create all of those processes within the cell. The biochemical processes can keep going. That requires energy. And our beautiful, amazing, clever bodies will burn the energy that they need and they will burn the energy from food that we eat and they will burn the energy from energy that is stored. And that is always happening. So there is never any energy deficit. There's no actual calorie deficit. But what is going on is that our bodies will access fuel from different places, from our food, from our fat, from our protein, from, you know, in cases of extreme starvation, from, our gut lining. But, what we can do is create a beautiful nourishing environment internally for ourselves where it's easy for our bodies to access our stored fat as an energy source because that is what it's there for and our bodies are happy and healthy when we're able to burn that. But a great way to get yourself into that state where you can easily burn your stored body fat is by not counting calories.
Dr Lucy Burns (09:22) Indeed, indeed. And I mean, the extremely flawed, the extreme, I mean, it blows my mind, can barely speak, but the extreme thing that people are missing here is that if your insulin levels are high, and let's face it, the majority of the world, particularly if you're over 50, but not necessarily so, if you are storing excess fat around your middle, then you are insulin resistant. And if you are insulin resistant, you cannot access your stored fuel. So it doesn't matter about this so-called calorie deficit because you can't get it. And then what happens? You're tired, you're hungry, you can't think, you're not functioning, you feel terrible. And so what do you do? You go and eat and then you berate yourself for having no willpower. And the way I like to think about it is that if you're insulin resistant, it's like you're a truck. Let's say you're a truck that carries fuel. So you're a fuel tanker and you'll have petrol or diesel, they probably have diesel in their fuel tank. And that'll take them so far. But you've also got this ginormous tanker on your back that's full of diesel.
Dr Mary Barson (10:45) That's like the stored body fat.
Dr Lucy Burns (10:49) Indeed, so that's just all body fat. And so as you're running out of fuel, you can't actually go and just get some fuel out of the tank. You have to go to the petrol station and you have to go and, you know, get it from the service station. so it's really interesting then that this idea that we can just tap into the fuel stores because we're in a calorie deficit, except they're not considering insulin levels. It was interesting earlier on, Miss, you said that the calorie counting, was done, which was created by this dude called Ant Water was done, you know, it's fairly modern. Although I would argue it's also fairly archaic because, well, so he discovered 120 years ago, whatever it was. But we also know that only 30 years ago, we discovered more metabolic hormones.
Dr Mary Barson (11:45) Yes, what I meant is that animals are thriving all over the world without ever really bothering to count calories. So this is like a little from that point of view, it's a modern imposition that we humans have placed upon ourselves. But you are right from a scientific knowledge and understanding point of view of how human metabolism works. It is extremely archaic. This idea that we are simple buckets of calories is very, very archaic and not in keeping with our current scientific understanding, which shows that we are really complex biological organisms and we've got complex hormonal interplays that control our hunger, satiety, our intake of food and our use of fuel and which fuels that we can use, whether it is the fuel in our tank or the fuel that's you know, in a big storage container on top of us, or to use our woodshed analogy, whether it's the carb kindling that's there by the fireplace, or whether it is the stored logs of fat that are locked away in our woodshed and insulin is the lock. It's really complex. And it's it's so complex that reducing it to a simple argument of calories is not very helpful. But let's just imagine for a moment that even if you did believe like you truly believed in, you know, the caloric impact of food and you're like, no, it's all about calories. Maybe we could just discuss, just debug for a minute why even if you believe in that rather flawed concept, even then calorie counting isn't helpful because there is so much variation and inaccuracies about how calories are measured and how and what is on the food label compared to the different energy that is required to absorb the certain nutrients. There are different variations in humans in how they absorb food. There are variations in our gut microbiome. So some different people with different gut microbiomes will absorb more energy or less energy. And there is also a role of our immune system. Lots of these individual factors make you know, the label on the box? Really inaccurate. And Lucy, you were telling me as well about how the labelling’s worked out.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:15) Yeah, so I think there's two things to think about. So I mean, you know, I like to stalk a lot of Facebook groups just to see, you know, what the general public are thinking about, what are their what are their pain points? What are their issues? And so many times I see people going, I'm in a calorie deficit, I'm only eating hundred and 1200 calories a day, but I'm not losing any weight. Why not? What's wrong? And they think that there's they're doing something wrong. So the first thing is to unpack the word, unpack the food labelling system. So the way we cut, the way food labelling calculates calories per serve is based on the calories decided by this Ant Water guy a hundred years ago, that fat, one gram of fat contains nine calories of energy. And one gram of protein contains four calories of energy and one gram of carbohydrates also contains four. It's 3 .9, but everyone rounds it up. And so they will then look at what's in their food and then go, well, our food has 20% carbohydrates, 50% fat and 30% protein or whatever it is. It's usually the other way around. therefore that's how we add up the calories. And therefore you've got that's your calories. And people who are calorie counting, are counting down to the last calorie, the accuracy of these, except, fun fact, they only have to be, a, they're allowed a 20% fudge factor. So the calorie, mean, so even if you wanted to count calories and you're there, diligently tracking everything that you put in your mouth, there's a 20%, like the massive fudge factor.
Dr Mary Barson (16:14) Imagine that I'm going to go for a 5k run. I'll just round it up or down by 20%. We wouldn't do that. You know, it's a big difference between running 6Ks and 5Ks for most of us.
Dr Lucy Burns (16:23) If you're getting paid by your boss each week and he goes, plus or minus 20%. Like you, you just go, no thanks. I'll just have the exact amount. you know, yeah. Yeah, no, it's ridiculous. So that's the first thing to note the labelling isn't accurate. The second thing that I think we should chat about is the accuracy of Ant Water’s calorie calorie definitions. And yes, I talked to us about that.
Dr Mary Barson (16:59) All based on averages. And there is no average food. Yeah, there's no average food and there's no average human. So it's based on averages of the percentages of the food, but it doesn't take into account all of these, all of the aspects that determine how much energy we can actually get from the food that we eat. And that depends on whether it's been cooked or not cooked, whether it's been ground or not ground. And the thermogenic effects, we've talked about this before of some foods. So some foods just take us more energy to be able to absorb them. So the net energy that you get is less because it took more energy to get the energy out of food and things like foods that are higher in fibre, and foods that are higher in protein have more of a thermogenic effect. So it really varies. There is no average person and no average food. We know that whole foods, and unprocessed foods, generally have got less calories available to us than ultra-processed foods on average. But even with the variation within whole foods, there's a pretty significant difference between what you were saying before, it's like a ripe tomato versus an unripe tomato, different variations of tomatoes are all gonna have different amounts of calories that are available for us to consume. And then there are differences. Dp you know that people in Russia often have got longer intestines than other than people in other parts of the world? That affects how much energy they can get from their food and different gut microbiomes. So in particular, know, the Japanese people are known to have quite different on average, gut microbiomes than people from Australia, than people from America and this changes how much calories and energy they can get from their food. So it's all really, really, it's a very flawed system for measuring things. And yet we are married to it. Married to calories.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:07) I know, we're in. And you know, I kind look and think, okay, and protein powders, you know, extremely popular. And what we know is that you can absorb. So I think that protein powders are extremely useful if you're underweight. Underweight, they're really helpful because you can absorb your protein really easily. If you're an Olympic bodybuilder or whatever, if you're just wanting to build muscle and you don't have any metabolic issues, and you're not trying to lose weight, then probably protein powder supplementation can be helpful. But what's happened is that protein powders have been sold, if you like, as a weight loss solution when what we want, so I like to imagine that your, your body, you know, to absorb the protein from, let's say, you know, a piece of chicken, it has to eat the chicken. it has to, first of all, it often has to prepare it. So that in itself means that your body is moving and you're, you know, using, you need to use fuel to do that. You're then sitting down using potentially a knife and fork and you are chewing again, chewing creates enzymes. We've got to make those from scratch. We've got to chew, that's a muscle action. Got to swallow, more muscle actions. Again, all of these require energy. Goes into our stomach. As we're in the stomach, more enzymes are made to cleave these gigantic proteins down to smaller proteins and polypeptides, and then finally amino acids. And again, our body has to make all of that from scratch. And that requires energy. And that's okay, because you don't even know you're doing it. Like how clever is our body? We're just sitting there and it's making all this stuff. So we can do all of that. And then as we're doing all of that, that creates some heat and again, increases our metabolic rate. So all of that's happening. And yet that is given the same caloric value as ingesting a protein powder for which you don't need to do any chewing. It's already been cleaved, there's no enzymes being made, you barely need to swallow it, you just open your mouth and zip it in it goes. And yet we, we
Dr Mary Barson (21:25) But that's before we even talk about the insulin effect of both of those two different things.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:29) Absolutely, absolutely. And so this is why calorie counting is so flawed. But the thing that gets on my goat so much is that there are people and influential people, particularly trainers, but not necessarily trainers. Recently was at a thing with another health professional and she made this great proclamation that the only way to lose weight is, you know, in fact, it was the proclamation was, well, we all know that the only way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit. I felt like putting up my hand and going, no, we don't. We don't all know that because it's not true, but it wasn't quite the right forum. So it's really, really important. I think that we keep banging this drum because the rhetoric that you can add up your calories and minus the ones that you use at the end of the day and somehow will magically be thin by doing this is just rubbish.
Dr Mary Barson (22:31) Yeah. And let's unpack that a little bit more. So why is calorie counting harmful and why is chasing a calorie deficit counterproductive?
Dr Lucy Burns (22:45) Well, it's harmful because it's wrong and people, companies, know, Weight Watchers built an empire on various versions of calorie counting, whether it was points, portions, all of those things. Influence, these influences are doing the same thing there. So it's harmful for that reason. But the ultimate harm the long-term harm is that if you follow this logic, several things will happen. One, you may well initially lose some body fat. that's the thing I think that is, again, it's like gambling. You might put a bet on and you may well win the first time and so you kind of get hooked into this thinking, that must work. I'll keep going with this. But ultimately what happens is our body is clever and it goes, if it can't access its stored fuel, it goes, right, well, what am going to do? Cause we've already decided you can't actually be in an energy deficit unless you're dead. So it's not going to let you do that. It is going to therefore slow down the things that it's doing, the things that it does while you're asleep, growing hair, replacing cells, making eyelashes. All those things that you don't even think about beating your heart won't stop that. But it will slow everything down.
Dr Mary Barson (24:23 Which is yuck and not trivial at all. That slowing down of your metabolic processes to match the reduced energy intake is not at all trivial. Like, people feel cold, people feel tired, people can have a low mood, dry skin, and brittle hair like it's not good. And the other thing is it can take a while to repair. I do believe the science and my experience shows that it can repair for most people, it absolutely can, but it's not at all trivial. I think it's quite dangerous to our health and wellbeing. So you've got some fat stores that you would like to be able to burn. You'd like to be able to use your fat stores for energy, perhaps for health, perhaps you want to get rid of the dangerous inflamed sort of visceral fat around your tummy. Perhaps you want to lose weight for other reasons. What is a healthy, helpful and good way to be able to access your fat stores?
Dr Lucy Burns (25:29) Well, I mean, the number one thing we need to do again is make sure insulin is low. Nothing will happen while your insulin levels are high. So yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't get into your fuel tanker. You can't get into your woodshed. You literally cannot get your stored body fat while insulin is high. So that has to be the first step. And so, you know, I think I would love a phrase rather than low calorie. Why don't we talk about low-insulin foods or low-insulin recipes? Like that would be a far more useful term than low-calorie recipes because you can have a low-calorie recipe that's still very high in carbohydrates which will cause your insulin levels to remain high. And so you've then got basically this, you're eating low-energy food that keeps your woodshed locked. And so all that is going to result in is you being hungry because that's, hunger is a sign for the body that it needs some fuel.
Dr Mary Barson (26:35) 100 grams of diet chocolate mousse is not going to have the same effect on your body as a hundred grams of, you know, salmon.
Dr Lucy Burns (26:45) No, and even 100 calories. And we know this because this is why people who drink sugary soft drinks, for example, which is the fastest way to get glucose into the body. You don't need to break it down. It's already broken down. It's easy to ingest. You don't need to swallow. And it gives you a massive insulin load and then the energy is all absorbed and then bang, you're hungry again. One of the things that calorie counting neglects is the idea that food, the components of food, and different components of food will keep you hungry or not. So we want to have foods that keep us full for long periods of time. And I mean, it's so amazing to me because we have people who have, who do our programs and they have You know, done the dietary guidelines, three meals, three snacks. They've always had breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Some of them will have supper, but again, not everybody. So again, five to six times a day. They have never gone four hours without eating. And to do so feels so scary for them until they lower their insulin, you know, eat foods that will keep you full and mosey about their day, amazed.
Dr Mary Barson (28:15) We get so many people saying that they are amazed that the hunger just isn't there gnawing at them all the time by eating foods that are really satisfying that nourish you and yeah, and keep you full. It's wonderful. I was amazed the first time it happened to me. Just yeah, walking past the ice cream aisle in the supermarket. like, I don't want ice cream. This has been unprecedented ever since I knew what ice cream was.
Dr Lucy Burns (28:45) Well, back to my health professional that I didn't call out in this forum who was saying that the only way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit. She also said that that will result in you being hungry and that means it's working. This is so dangerous because honestly, the thing with hunger, is hunger is physiological and if you not a character flaw and you can try and white knuckle your way through it but eventually hunger will trump willpower. So if you're walking past that ice cream aisle and you are your body is saying — I need fuel lady I need fuel how can get me some fuel and you're going no no no no it's gonna look at that ice cream go– well that's pretty quick energy why don't we get that and your brain's going no I'm not doing that I'm being good no no no if you're full it's not gonna keep reminding you that it needs fuel. It's not going to keep saying to you what about this, what about this? It's going to go, I'm full god, I'm full. Excellent, let's keep moving by.
Dr Mary Barson (29:55) Excellent. Yep. And that mental chatter, it's just quiet. So that's much quieter. So that's first thing is that yes, heal your metabolism, eat satiating foods, get your insulin under control, and then things are much quieter. And then what would be the next layer?
Dr Lucy Burns (30:05) Yeah, it's much quieter. Well, then, I guess, you know, again, we're thinking we've, we're wanting to burn, use that use is an easy word, use our body fat. That's what we want to do. That's what lots of people want to do. So therefore we go, all right, well, now we've now got access to it. And now the things are over time. And again, lots of us have done 30 or 40 years of you know, trying to count calories. And we've developed various mindsets and we've got various cultural things. And so it's often unlearning some of those stories. And I thought we should talk about that next week as well. And we did, we mentioned it last week in our mindset episode, but next week I thought we'd also talk about motivation, but understanding how your body works and tuning in, again, we have never done that, tuning into your hunger tuning in to your satiety. Not eating just because it's morning tea time, not eating just because it's lunchtime, actually eating when you're hungry. And I cannot tell you, I cannot tell you how much food, how much better food tastes when you're a little bit hungry. Not overwhelmingly hungry where you could almost eat your arm off, but just that little bit, which, you know, again, it's working up an appetite. People used to use that phrase all the time and now we don't.
Dr Mary Barson (31:36) Love it. So gorgeous ones. Don't stress too much about calories. It's much more about food quality than quantity. And if you can choose what you eat and when you eat, then your body with its natural normal hunger signals, ultimately will decide how much you eat. Yes. And if you're following a fitness influencer who starts showing you a video of a bucket of water and telling you that all you need to do is put less into the bucket than you pour out, then run. It's a red flag. They don't know what they're talking about. They've simplified it down to basic, basic language that's wrong. It will be the hill that I die on. Honestly, this just calling out calling out fitness, out trainers, it's particularly trainers, but as I mentioned, not necessarily trainers, but anybody, anyone who even uses the phrase calorie deficit, unless you're talking about a dead person is wrong.
Dr Mary Barson (32:55) You're poor goats, Lucy. They're still getting at them.
Dr Lucy Burns (32:38) I know, I know, I'm on my goat, I'm getting on my goat. I'm on my horse, my hot horse, with my goat.
Dr Mary Barson (33:05) Protecting your goats. Yep. Well, I think you're the goat, Lucy.
Dr Lucy Burns (33:08) Lovely segue to finish. Alright gorgeous listeners thank you so much for joining us again today and hopefully, we have helped you just uncouple yourself from calorie counting and recognise that it is not as simple as calories in calories out. Weight loss is chemistry, not maths. It's hormones, not calories.
Dr Mary Barson (33:31) Absolutely. See you later, gorgeous one.
Dr Lucy Burns (33:33) Bye for now.
Dr Lucy Burns Burns (33:36) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
