The Fourth Lesson of my Chiropractic Philosophy

4. Nutrition – All calories are not created equal.

Why do people become overweight? This has long been the subject of debate, and one of the loudest and most often heard arguments is that people gain weight because they create an energy imbalance by eating too many calories and burning too few.

It has only been within the past 10 years that conclusive evidence has been provided that maintaining the appropriate “energy balance” is not responsible for weight gain. So the key to losing weight is not controlling our impulses and exercising more, but rather changing the particular foods we eat.

Not all calories are created equal.

Insulin regulates how much fat gets trapped in your fat cells. This hormone is well understood as the explanation for why our fat cells get fat. I feel it is fairly common sense to assume that fat fat cells lead to fat humans.

The kinds of carbohydrates we eat today are usually from highly refined and processed foods such as soda, bread, candy and all sorts of sugar-laden pseudo foods that drive up our insulin levels.  This is the nutrient-hormone-fat interaction on the full human system. But, they conclude, while individual cells get fat that way, the reason an entire human gets fat has nothing to do with it. We’re just eating too much.

You don’t need to have an advanced science degree to understand this hypothesis. If our cells get fat based on excess exposure to carbohydrates through all the refined and process foods we consume, our bodies, which are made of these cells, ultimately get fat as well. Simple enough.

The simple formula I like to use to illustrate a healthy approach to nutrition is:

                                    HEALTH = NUTRIENT LOAD / CALORIES

This understanding has freed me from a focus on calories and allowed me to focus rather on the quality of the calories I consume. For example, I’d rather eat a high fat snack of raw almonds and a half avocado over a low-fat bagel with low-fat cream cheese. I don’t obsess about fat and calories; I focus on the nutrient quality of the foods I consume and know that if I keep that high, I will stay happy and healthy and my body will thank me. It has freed me from a “calorie-counting” mentality and yet has enabled me to maintain my natural weight.

One other thing that I relate to nutrition that perhaps other medical providers don’t is sun exposure. In tangible scientific ways, the sun’s light energy gives us energy, but in an even more human way, the sun should be seen as a nutrient. Keeping your spine strong requires sufficient amounts of calcium and vitamin D. Vitamin D should be received from exposure to sunshine, or if that is not feasible, from an oral vitamin D3 supplement. Vitamin D3 is found in eggs, organ meats, animal fat, cod liver oil, and fish. It is the equivalent to the vitamin D3 formed on your skin from UV-B. You should stay away from the synthetic D2, as it has been shown to be toxic at the higher dose ranges.

Tune in next week for the fifth lesson of my chiropractic philosophy about the importance of staying hydrated!