Kit Broihier and Allison Stowell chat about calories, common misconceptions about them, and how they can be useful or problematic. Whether you’re working to lose weight or trying to understand what a nutritious and nicely proportioned diet looks like for you, they’ve got insights on how counting calories can help us or skew our perspective.
Are calories from whole food more nutritious?
How we process food can be very individual, so how dietitians make recommendations is challenging, but often times whole food calories provide more fiber, while processed food calories tend to come with more sugar and salt.
Discretionary calories don’t reflect how humans eat.
Calories are not a definitive currency, and the USDA approach to teaching discretionary calories does not really reflect how people make decisions about food.
It’s important to honor hunger.
Every body is different, every day is different. Hunger is a reminder you’re alive. If you’re counting calories, you still need to know how to pay attention to what your body needs.
This audio clip is part of a series on calories captured as part of our preparation for our Calories Close Up webinar. For more information about calories, watch the free webinar or listen to more clips from our audio series.