Fat and Calories

Eat More, Weigh Less By Dean Ornish M.D.

(I haven't edited this one yet...)

A fat calorie is not the same as a calorie from protein or carbohydrate, either in the number of calories it contains or in the way it is metabolized by the body.

Fat has over twice as many calories as either protein or carbohydrate. (Fat has nine calories per gram, whereas protein and carbohydrate only has four calories per gram.) So, when you reduce fat consumption from the typical American intake of 40% of calories down to the 10% fat levels in what we recommend, you can eat one third more food yet take in the same amount of calories. Put in a more healthful way, you can consume the same amount of food yet take in fewer calories.

Your body eaisily converts dietary fat calories into body fat. One hundred fat calories can be stored as body fat by expending only 2.5 calories, whereas your body must spend twenty-three calories- almost ten times as much- to convert one hundred calories of dietary protein or carbohydrate into body fat. Only about 1% of dietary protein and carbohydrate end up as body fat, because your body would rather use them up right away than waste energy to store them. So,by keeping fat consumption low not only do you tend to consume fewer calories, but also those calories are less likely to be conberted into body fat.

The reason your body converts dietary fat into body fat so eaisily is that fat is how your body stores energy. Calories are stored energy, like batteries. Since fat stores nine calories per gram, where as protein and carbohydrate store only four calories per gram, then your body can store over twice as much energy in the form of fat. Until a few hundred years ago or so, most people ate this way. Even now, the majority of people on earth still do. They just happen to live in less affluent and less industrialized countries.

Your body only needs about 4 to 6% of calories as fat to synthesize what are known as essential fatty acids. Eating about 10% fat provides more than enough fat, without giving you more than you need. It's the excessive amounts of fat and cholesterol in your diet- that is , more than 10% of calories as fat- that lead to excess weight, heart disease, and other illnesses. When you eat primarily fruits, vegetables, grains, and beans that's what you end up with.


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