When it comes to your weight you probably think of calories. Calories are the energy in the foot you eat. You have probably heard on pound of fat equals 3,500 calories.

Doesn't 1 Pound + 3,500 Calories?

Calories are what your body burns to move. Any extra calories you eat that you don't burn by moving are stored as fat. You gain weight. It's that simple, right? Wrong. It turns out it doesn't work like that most of the time.

The Kind of Calories Matter: Carbs, Proteins or Fat?

This is the part that gets left out. This is not new information.

William Davis, Md in his book, Undoctored, spells it out. This in not new information. The studies are 75 years old.

People were put on 1000-calorie diets. They only at 1,000 calories a day.

For some the calories were almost all from carbohydrates. They gained weight and were hungry.

Other people got most of their calories from fat and protein. They lost weight and weren't hungry.

How Your Body Handles Cars, Proteins, and Fats Explains It All

Carbohydrates you eat and digest for energy are turned into sugar. Your blood can only safely hold one teaspoon of sugar. More than that and you end up with tissue damage.

When you blood sugar goes up, you body releases insulin. Insulin store the extra sugar in fat cells. Extra sugar ends up getting stored as fat.

So far this all sounds good. Extra sugar is bad. Insulin stores the extra sugar in fat cells. But then your blood sugar drops and you get hungry.

The problem is the fat cells store the sugar as fat. When you blood sugar drops, and you get hungry, the fat cells don't just release sugar.

You eat more carbs, insulin is released, extra fat is stored, your blood sugar drips, you get hungry and the cycle starts over.

Fats and Proteins

Fats and proteins are handled different. Basically, you don't get the dame insulin response.

You don't end up with insulin moving extra calories right into fat cells. You don't end up hungry. You won't eat again. You don't gait weight.

I am not saying it's not possible to gain weight eating fats and proteins but it's a lot harder. You will not be hungry, like you are soon after eating or drinking a lot of carbs.

No Such Things as Essential Carbs

Things are essential when you have to eat them to get them. Your body can't make it. For example, proteins are made of "amino acids." You body is not able to make nine different amino acids. The only way to get them is to each them.

There are no essential carbs. You body can make any carbs it needs. And it turns out your body will do just fine if you don't eat carbs.

You may hear that your brain needs carbs. Most of your brain will run find on ketones that are formed by you body burning fats. About 70% of your brain energy can be supplied by ketones.

And there is some evidence that ketones are healthier for those parts of your brain. If you don't eat carbs, your body will make the carbs it needs from proteins.

Are All Carbs Bad?

It's the processed carbs that are bad. Things like table sugar or flour - like in whit bread.

Some carbs are not digestible - they are fiber. When digestible carbs are eaten with fiber carbs, you don't get the same insulin response. It's also important to get the fiber into your body to keep your stomach "microbiome" happy - but that's another story.

Fat is NOT Bad for You

Natural Fats are not bad for you.

Your body is make up of cells. One of the main parts of the cells wall is made of fat. Fat is like an oil. Oil and water don't mix.

The fat in the cell wall keeps the water inside and outside the cells separate. That is what keeps the cells working...and you alive. It also seems like the essential fats help control what moves in and out of the cells. Some diseases may be caused by a lack or essential fats.

We have all been conditioned to think that fats are bad.

It actually goes back to studies done in the 50' by Ancel Keys. He was a scientist that thought fat was what caused heart disease. He studied diets in different countries.

It turned out fat wasn't associated with heart disease. But Ancel Keys didn't report all the information he gathered; he reported fat causes heart disease.

He was famous and the information stuck. That's why so many people, almost 70 years later, think all fat is bad for you.

If you had Diabetes... You should be careful about changing your diet without talking with the person treating your diabetes.

There is more and more evidence that some kinds of diabetes can be "cured" by changing your diet.

A good place to start is to watch YouTube videos by Sarah Hallberg - a diabetes physician that explains how set gets rid of diabetes with diet.

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Christopher DiPasquale, PhD, PT, OCS, SCS, CHT is a physical therapist at Performance Physical Therapy & Sports Medicine with offices in Hebron and Colchester, Connecticut. He is board certified by the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties in Orthopedic Physical Therapy and Sports Physical Therapy and a Certified Hand Therapist by the Hand Therapy Certification Committee.

For more information visit pptsm.com or call the office: Colchester 860-537-3014 or Hebron 860-228-4883