Clarity

         A reader expresses concern over a Charged! post referring to a recent calorie study from The New England Journal of Medicine:

"I am passionate about health and I'm really distressed to read that you are a proponent of the calorie is a calorie mantra...I absolutely agree that quantity is a major factor in health but I'd much rather hear you saying "unpackaged, unpackaged, unpackaged!"

I have no doubt we are philisophically closer in this regard then you realize. To be clear: my advice is always to choose foods of a whole, non-processed and "unwrapped" variety. I do believe, however, that calorie counting is a certain & effective way to maintain weight and wellness. I would be leaving a person underequipped and vulnerable if I told them, "It's only about whole foods". The study's co-author, Catherine Loria, a nutritional epidemiologist with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, nicely sums up my thoughts:

"People do have to choose heart-healthy foods," she says, but "I think the beauty of the study is that they have a lot of flexibility in terms of the dietary approach."   

And it is this flexibility that is crucial to individuals and their different needs when it comes to nutrition. Someone could eat all the "right" foods and still become over weight. And this would certainly be bad for the heart...it doesn't matter how you become overweight, healthy food or not, your heart(among other things) still suffers. Here is when we would address the imprtance of calorie counting. As personal trianers who are certified in nutrition, we discuss the importance of "unpackaged" unprocessed food every day. But, each person has different lessons to learn, and for some, they need to learn that a calorie, even though good, is still a calorie, and can lead to unhealthy weight gain.