-Mikään ei ole vähemmän kivikautista kuin kaloreiden laskeminen hän sanoo..

- Tarve laskea kaloreita merkitsees sitä että painonsäätelymekanismi on häiriintynyt tai tavoitteet ovat epäluonnollisia.

- Tarve laskea kaloreita merkitsees sitä että painonsäätelymekanismi on häiriintynyt tai tavoitteet ovat epäluonnollisia. Vika tulisi korjata ja tavoitteet asettaa mahdollsimman terveesti. Silloin ei tarvitse nälkiinnyttää itseään.

If you’re looking for a how-to book, this isn’t it. There’s no diet plan inside. But if you’re looking for an explanation of the science of energy balance and weight loss that’s clearly written and easy to grasp, this is definitely one for your bookshelf.

As the book’s title suggests, Dr. Lagakos isn’t a big fan of counting calories. In fact, here’s the first paragraph after the table of contents:

Counting calories is an ineffective means to determine energy balance or lose weight. The calories in food are not the same as those expended by the body. The poor, misunderstood calorie explains the concept of calories in the context of nutrition, obesity, and appetite.

And that’s exactly what the book does. In the opening chapters, Dr. Lagakos explains what a calorie is and how calories are measured, both in food and as energy expended in clinical settings. Then he devotes a couple of chapters to explaining why your body doesn’t work like a bomb calorimeter. Strangely enough, your body works like a body. It makes decisions about what to do with the calories.

I suspect that a few calorie fanatics out in cyberspace won’t bother actually reading the book but will nonetheless insist that Dr. Lagakos is trying to deny the laws of thermodynamics. He isn’t. Nowhere in the book does he claim that calories magically disappear or that a particular macronutrient ratio will allow you to overeat and still lose weight. His main point is that the tendency to either accumulate or shed body fat is driven by the relationship between nutrient partitioning, energy expenditure and appetite. What we eat – not just how much – affects all three.