My introduction to Steemit came a few days ago while researching ketosis and the keto-flu. Steemit was mentioned and I like what I see.

I am a physical therapist assistant by trade and struggling internet entrepreneur and weight loss guru by night. In around 1995 I had a small presence on the internet with traffic coming in at 10k views a day. Unfortunately, that traffic was near impossible to monetize at the time and once life took over, the website and traffic faded away. Since monetization became easier, I have made several half-hearted attempts to create a niche site but now fail with gaining traffic.

I am also one of the many people that lost bitcoin (about 20k at today's value) in Mt Gox and then again with Cryptsy incidents, so I am overly cautious on cryptocurrency.

I will be posting mainly on weight loss, general science, and occasionally dipping my toe back in the cryptocurrency world.

So, hello, Steemit! Here's an example post you can expect:

Well, a calorie is a....

You're not exactly sure what a calorie is, are you? I wasn't sure either. I decided to take a closer look to see what this mysterious thing is that we're supposed to be counting and making sure we don't get too many of. Hang on, it gets science-like in this post, but I've made it as simple as I can.

The Definition

There are two types of calories.. Yes, two.

Small Calorie - (symbol: cal) - 1 cal is the amount of energy required to raise one gram of water by one degree Celsius.
A Large Calorie (symbol: Cal, kcal) - 1 kcal is the amount of energy required to raise one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.
1 kcal = 1000 cal
So a calorie is a unit of measurement and not a physical object like it's treated in our language. This poses a problem when it comes to weight loss.

The Problem

So now that we've answered the question of what is a calorie, we can now see the problem. We think of weight loss as calorie in - calorie out = weight loss (or gain). That doesn't really make sense with what we now know. With this new information we can easily see that not all calories are created equal and simply "counting calories" is not very efficient. Let me ask you a question. What food is better for you: A 100 calorie snack pack of cookies, or 100 calories of spinach? The answer should be obvious.

The Body is a Machine

The body is no different than a machine, it requires fuel to run. The higher quality fuel you use, the better and more efficient the machine will perform. I'm sure you've watched that weight loss show that's popular on NBC. One of the trainers would preach about the contestants hitting their calorie goal and used the calorie in / calorie out mantra, but do you think for a minute that she would accept it if the person said that they were only eating 1500 calories a day of potato chips? Of course not.

Blood Sugar (Glucose)

What we strive for is to keep a constant blood sugar level in our bloodstream throughout a day. That 100 pack of cookies mentioned earlier will spike your blood sugar level upward. While you'll feel good and energetic at first, you'll soon have that sugar crash and feel awful afterwards. When our blood sugar spikes, the body produces insulin to deal with that increased glucose (sugar broken down into what the body can use). The next problem comes in the form of what insulin does to the body.

Insulin

The problem with insulin is twofold. First, it removes that extra glucose we added to our bloodstream which is fine, but insulin does the job too well. Insulin removes more sugar than what you put in, which means that you feel lethargic and tired since your blood sugar level is now too low. This creates the craving for more sugar, rinse, repeat. The second problem is that when insulin is released, your body shuts down the ability to burn fat. And that, my friends is why calories in / calories out isn't the case.

Stability is The Key

When we eat foods that are low-glycemic, (releases low amounts of glucose into the bloodstream slowly), we can keep our blood sugar stable without releasing insulin. Now we're able to burn fat and keep ourselves feeling great throughout the day. Not only that, but we can eat MORE calories of low-glycemic foods and have better results than just restricting calories and eating whatever we want.

The Takeaway

So, after all of this, what's the bottom line? Yes, calories count, but not in the way we were taught. A calorie is not just a calorie. The higher quality of calorie that you take in has more of an effect on weight loss than just the amount.