How much we walk.
How many liters of water we drink.
How many hours do we sleep?
We spend our lives by putting us ‘numerical’ challenges, forgetting ourselves from that old maximum that as wisely proposed to prevent the quality to the amount.
A clear exponent of this quantifying mania is our obsession for counting the calories we ingest daily, especially when our goal is to lose weight.
Guided by the simplistic “Men should take 2,000 calories a day and women, about 1,800”, we fall into the trap of thinking that the secret to getting rid of our bushes is to reduce the amount of food forgetting ourselves of that wise saying that he put in
Value Quality on quantity.
“Any diet based solely on the intake of a specific calorie number turns out, as little, surreal for many reasons. The first of them and, probably one of the most obvious, because our activity and, therefore, our caloric expenditure are not
The same ones on a Monday that one Sunday, for putting in a very visual example, “explains Endocrine María Amaro.
In addition to the physical activity we carry out, Amaro explains that there are other factors that should be taken into account before crushing the body and morality with hypocaloric diets, such as “muscle mass or each person’s body temperature.”
But beyond that, as Serrat said, “each one is like it is” and needs a custom plan, in diet and exercise, there is a point over which we should reflect.
“The important thing is not the number of calories, but the quality of the nutrients they bring us, it is not the same 2,000 calories from a pizza than from a whole entrecot. The key is to discern where those calories come from,” Amaro says.
It seems easy, right?
Because it should not be so much when Spain is one of the countries with higher indexes of obesity and malnutrition.
“We eat, but we do not feed us, we get into the body many calories very quickly that they do not satisfy us and we have to continue eating.”
The main guilty of this nonsense are, as no, the ultra-processed because, beyond the nutritional disaster they are abotted us, are ‘designed’ to fan our goll.
“Fish, meat, eggs or potatoes, for putting some examples, can have the same calories as a cake or a bun (depending on the quantity) but its passage through the digestive system is slower. Instead,
The ultraprocessed, by digested faster, make our brain not get to segregate the hormones of the satiety and continue eating. ”
If the important thing is the quality, why is this obsession of ingesting little calories?
“By pure ignorance. For being putting the focus exclusively on the number of calories we ingest with each meal and think that, if we eat less and move ourselves equal to or more, we will lose weight,” says Sofia Recacoechea, ‘Health Coach’ by the Institute
For Integrative Nutrition of New York, senior technician in dietary and co-founder of Goodermood.
And, indeed, it may be so but “only in the short term,” it details.
Here is your explanation: “Including only the amount without taking into account the quality and the nutritional balance of the foods we eat will generate a hormonal imbalance that, in the long run, it will even increase more weight. You look where you are
Look, it is not a sustainable way to lead a life with energy and health. ”
His proposal: “Eat more, opting for Sacial Food with High Nutritional Density that provide us vitamins, minerals and fiber.”
Our body, continues Recacoechea, needs that “the foods we eat provide us with the essential nutrients that can only be obtained from what we eat: vitamins and minerals -retens priority in fruit and vegetables-; nine essential amino acids – which we will find in quality proteins
They provide us with the egg and fish; omega 6 / omega 3 fat – in the blue fish, the AOVE and the nuts – and the energy sufficient to guarantee the good condition of our cells ».
In short, “real, varied and nutritious food as opposed to empty calories that we find in ultra-processed, sugars, refined hydrates and trans fat,” he concludes.
“Our organism, when it switches less calories than you need, is put into survival mode. It generates adaptations to compensate for this caloric deficit to which it is subjected: increases the hormone of appetite (greel); decreases that of satiety (leptin);
and reduces basal metabolism, for ‘spending’ the minimum to meet vital functions, “says Sofia Recacoechea, Goodermodd.
