Essential calories

Hi folks,

At first, nothing sprang to mind for this week’s blog, but I soon came across what is potentially the most important blog ever!

Recently I conducted a health assessment with a client, this included everything from blood pressure to nutritional intake. We found that…

a)      He was under-eating (up to 500kcal a day less than guidelines recommended),

b)      His body mass index was low, indicating that he was slightly underweight for his height,

c)      Yet his body-fat percentage was high.

….work that one out!

All I could think was that on the occasions he was eating, he was eating the wrong foods. After consulting his food diary this proved true and I realised that this may be a common trend on a global scale.

The problem starts when people aim to reduce their body-fat by eating less, but still of the same food types. In fact what would be beneficial is to switch to healthier alternatives before reducing calorie intake. So, what the main lessons to take away from this?

1) Calories are good (it’s the media that’s made them bad). We need them to survive, the more we do – the more we need!

2) Make sure these are ‘good’ calories from simple foods rather than ‘bad’ calories from greasy, salty foods.

3) No single test / measure is enough to gauge your health by, especially not BMI. The more health tests - the more accurate the result.

Hope this makes sense and may relate to / help some people,

James