The Calorie Myth – by Jonathan Bailor

First we’ll mention: the author is not a doctor, but the book is endorsed by assorted well-known doctors in the field, and the science described is consistent with current scientific consensus (and, for that matter, consistent with what we wrote in our mythbusting feature: Are You A Calorie-Burning Machine?).

It’s often (correctly) said that “not all calories are created equal”, but how should we quantify them? He proposes his “SANE solution”, which is based around the ideas of:

• Satiety: how quickly calories fill us up
• Aggression: how likely calories are to be stored as fat
• Nutrition: how many micronutrients calories bring with them, and how much
• Efficiency: how easily calories are converted

To this end, he recommends a diet high in foods that score well on his “SANE” factors, and provides such things as recipes, meal plans etc to help, as well principles for exercising more usefully in the context of metabolic base rate, and moving (rather than fighting) one’s “set point”, which is usually associated with one’s weight but it really has more to do with metabolic base rate. In fact, Bailor recommends throwing out the bathroom scale and focusing on pursuing good health itself, rather than obsessing over changing one’s relationship with the Earth’s gravitational field.

Yes, it says “lose weight” in the subtitle, but the idea is that this will be a by-product rather than the thing actively pursued. After all, we can control our actions, so that input variable is where we should put our focus, not the output variable of the numbers on the scale which can often be misleading (muscle weighing more than fat, tendency to water weight fluctuations, etc).

The style is a little flashy and salesy for this reviewer’s personal taste (a lot of references to his own businesses and neologisms associated with such), but it doesn’t take away from the quality of the content, and in terms of science, study references come at a rate of about one per page on average.

Bottom line: if you’d like to rethink your relationship with calories, then this book can help give you a much more practical angle.

Click here to check out The Calorie Myth, and take control of your metabolic base rate!