What Does Caloric Density Mean?

Here's an excerpt of a post I wrote for our website at work, www.utahfootdoc.com. Please check out our podiatry website! There's a lot of info about foot pain and how to prevent problems with your feet.

In the mean time, when I tell people I studied nutrition, I get a lot of questions about what to/not to eat to maintain health and especially to stay or get to a healthy weight. Some people think the trick to losing weight is eating "less." False! Starving yourself is just setting yourself up for failure and can be very unhealthy. Instead, eat a diet low in calories, high in food volume and vitamins/minerals (micronutrients.)

Here's what I said about calories for a post on Valentine's Day Chocolate, it's a tiny bit technical, but it covers the basics of Caloric density:

Chocolate can cause weight gain due to something called caloric density. Caloric density is how many calories are in a given mass.  For example, one pound of broccoli will have far fewer calories than one pound of chocolate. There are two reasons for this caloric discrepancy.

First, the type of macronutrients in the food.

This shows how many calories are in a gram of fat, protein, carbohydrate, and alcohol. 

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories
Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories
Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories
Alcohol: 1 gram = 7 calories 

Chocolate has a lot more fat than broccoli.  Fat is one of the four “macronutrients,” or nutrients that give us energy. It has the highest caloric density, 9 calories in each gram, compared with 4 calories per gram in carbs and protein.

Second, the proportion of macronutrients to other food volume.

Chocolate is almost pure macronutrient: sugar and cocoa (carbohydrate); and butter (fat). Each bite is pure energy. Broccoli has macronutrients (mostly carbohydrate) but also contains a lot of fiber and water, so there are fewer macronutrients in each bite.

So, if you are choosing a diet that’s not calorically dense in effort to lose weight, consider:

· Do you have a healthy balance of macronutrients (fat, carb, and protein)?

· Are you eating foods high in fiber?

· Are you eating foods high in water?

Take home message: It’s Valentine’s Day, enjoy some chocolates!:)  Eating a few chocolates won’t wreck a healthy diet, but for every day eating, stick with foods that are less calorie dense.

Great Inventions: Dry Shampoo and Directional Horns

Here's my list of great inventions.  Some have already been made, others have yet to.  But I'm sure they will at some point, because in the words of Olaf, "It just makes sense!"

1. Dry shampoo.  Invented!  This stuff is a miracle worker. Ellen DeGeneres doesn't see the value of dry shampoo. I've got an exercise for you Ellen: look at the hair on top of your head. Ask yourself, how long does it take to wash that hair?  How long does it take to DRY that hair? How long to style it?  Yeah, about 5 minutes total, that's what I thought. 

Let's look at another person's hair.  Say, mine.  Do you know how long it takes to rinse out shampoo from those heavy tresses?  Do you know how many pounds of water can be held on my head by those powerful strands? Water that has to evaporate before I can go outside in the winter?  Yeah.  I love dry shampoo.  If you haven't used it (and your name's not Ellen) you will love this. Say it was a stressful day and you were running your fingers through your hair a lot.  You wake up in the morning and you look like a stringy mess. Just spray this anywhere that looks like it needs at and fluff through it with a brush.  Viola!  It looks freshly washed for another day. :)  Saving you time for more important things than washing your hair.

2. Horns that honk in a specific direction. Not invented.  Why?

Car designers seem to think that the only person we'd ever need to honk at is the person in front of us.  This seems ironic, since if you rear end someone, it's automatically considered your fault.  I have often thought of the importance of this invention.  Like when you see your BFF and want to honk at them without making the car in front of you paranoid.  Like when you want to wave to the taco stand guy but he's not looking at you.  Like when a duck is crossing the road and you want to warn the car next to you. 

But seriously, I saw an old lady almost get smashed today because some dude was cruising down center street at 30mph and ignoring the fact that the lane of traffic next to him had stopped.  I wanted to honk at him, but I knew the car in front of me would think I was annoyed and honking at him for stopping for an old lady and the car driving by would probably ignore it.  Conundrum. 

Engineers, I call upon you to solve this. 

"My Beautiful Woman"

Wacoal Thailand has produced a campaign called "My Beautiful Woman."  It's the sweetest!

Their slogan is:

"Women Are All Made Beautiful."

I love the three short videos they've produced.  There are a lot of "true beauty" campaigns out there, but this one is very special.  It focuses on selfless love as the thing that makes a woman beautiful.  In the films it shows three women who quietly sacrifice for those who need their help.  I know a lot of beautiful women:)

It reminds me of that scripture, Matthew 16:25   For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will^alose his life for my sake shall ^bfind it.

Let's interpret it a little bit differently: Whosoever will focus solely on herself shall not be beautiful: and whosoever will forget herself in the service of others will have true beauty.

Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face

It's been on my mind lately.  A feminist theory called the "male gaze."  I don't like that saying it that way, because I'm not a feminist, and it's a completely inappropriate name.  One cannot assign the act of objectifying to an entire sex.  Isn't assigning bad qualities to a whole sex what feminism is so against?

"Your gaze hits the side of my face" by Barbara Kruger

So, let's just call it an objectifying gaze.  I love the piece above.  It so accurately portrays the feeling of receiving an objectifying gaze.  The "woman" here, is in fact, an object made of stone.  Not a real human.  Her cheeks are very shadowy, as if she's blushing, obviously uncomfortable.  Her chin is pulling inward, another universal sign of discomfort.  Her eyes are looking up, but her head is pointing down, showing discomfort; turning inward and trying to protect the vulnerable parts (neck, heart) of herself.  The words on the side are black and white, square, typed, evenly spaced, totally non-dynamic.  To read it, it should sound monotone and robotic; non-punctuated and void of emotion.  And the word "hits." It implies abuse, force.  It's not something interactive.  It's controlling and taking agency.  I like that the woman's eyes are still up.  She hasn't given up.  It's just she cannot endure the force of the gaze without some manifestations of how it affects her.  

There are a lot of arguments against the "male gaze" theory, but no one can deny that objectifying gazes exist.  One part of the theory I find particularly interesting is that people can "male gaze" at themselves; that is, view themselves not from their own perspective, but the perspective of a critical, objectifying person.  In this way, women give up their unique perspective and further buy into the idea that women are objects.

The movie Penelope, is a wonderful film exploring a lot of social theories, stigmas and interactions (it even passes the Bechdel test).  It's a story of personal growth and coming to full health.  It's about a young woman who has been told she is unacceptable because of the way she looks.  This idea has been reinforced over and over.  Eventually, she discovers against all odds that this idea is a lie.  She becomes accepted and starts building a life for herself.  The way she looks changes, and some people try again to tell her subtly and not-so-subtly that the way she looks makes her unacceptable or of lesser value.  This time she does not believe the lie for a minute and echo's one of the film's themes, "I'm still me."

Two parts in this film perfectly illustrate the objectifying gaze. To clarify, it's primarily her own learned self-objectifying gaze that she feels.  The things her Mom and her suitors have told her color her perception of herself.  This is made evident when it shows Penelope thinking over and over of the suitors that ran from her because they thought she was unacceptable. (35:54)  Penelope however, is not unacceptable.  She's smart, funny, polite, caring, and unique.  When she's being herself, she's adorable.  When she becomes a victim though, she gets paralyzed.

At 22:45, Penelope and Max are gazing at each other through a 2-way mirror.  Penelope meets his gaze momentarily, but then becomes self-conscious, or self-objectifying.  She can't meet his gaze anymore, gets ashamed and tries to hide her face.  The thing is, he can't even see her.  So it's not Max's gaze, it's her own self-objectifying gaze that she can't tolerate.  This is not her genuine gaze.  It's not how she inherently views herself.  It's how she views herself through the eyes of critical and objectifying people. 

It's true that it's not Max's fault.  That's a common argument from people who do objectify.  It's not their fault how their gaze is being perceived.  In this example, it's true that regardless of what Max's gaze meant, Penelope's reaction is not his fault.  But is that true of Penelope's mom and suitors?  No.  They are at fault to some degree.  They either made her feel inadequate by explicitly saying so or implicitly giving her social cues.  People who think you can't tell when someone looks at you critically usually don't understand social cues, and therefore do not think they exist.  In reality, social cues are given and interpreted, and they teach you how to think and feel.  If you don't want to internalize a message someone is sending, it takes a lot of cognitive power and external support.

At 32:10 Max sees Penelope for the first time.  He reacts, but his gaze is not objectifying.  Penelope, is again feeling the pressure of her self-objectifying gaze.  She displays a lot of the same body language as the woman in the piece by Kruger.  She is obviously uncomfortable, breathing rapidly head down chin pulled in, face tilted and expression very asymmetrical (symptomatic of a forced expression.  Natural expressions are symmetrical, which is why we like symmetrical faces, it shows proper socio-emotional adjustment.)  Max starts to move toward Penelope.  He doesn't want to objectify her, he wants to understand and know her for who she is.  The important part is that as he moves closer and starts to reach out to touch her, she does not panic.  Rather, she starts to relax.  Why?  He has a different kind of gaze.  Not judgmental, critical or objectifying.  It's a curious gaze, ready to learn and even accept and appreciate.  It's her gaze, the way she thinks she's worthy of being seen.  She starts to have a little trust in him that he won't objectify her.  Because as soon as he objectifies her, she's powerless before him.  As soon as she objectifies herself, she's powerless before herself.  It takes away her agency, her ability to choose how to act.  She becomes paralyzed.  The gaze "hits" the side of her face.  She becomes a helpless victim.  

Penelope eventually frees herself.  She frees herself from toxic people in her life until she has freed herself of their objectifying gaze that she has so internalized.  When she no longer has a self-objectifying gaze, it's much harder for people's opinions to affect her. What's the take home message?  I don't know. Maybe just to consider how you think about yourself and others.  And what if we lived in a world where we all looked the same, would your thoughts change?  NOT a world where we were all the same. A world where we still had different qualities and quirks, intelligence and humor.  Just a world where our appearances weren't the part of us most susceptible to judgement.  Kind of like how Penelope covers her face with a scarf.  She takes away her viewers' ability to judge her appearance.  And she starts to learn that she is very worthy of acceptance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9WfoJ5yQFc

(Hopefully the link is still available, if not, just go watch the movie, the whole thing's great!)

Come Over Here and Gimme Some Suga!

Happy New Year and all that, I've made some resolutions.  They're very flexible this year, and so far they've been great at guiding me.  One is to do something every day to improve myself (physically, spiritually, financially... just in some way something out of the ordinary).  The other is to consciously serve someone (go out of my way to do something selfless for someone) every day.  It's really made me examine my life, and it's been great so far:)

On the same track as resolutions... since I got braces, I've been a little more conscious about how much sugar I eat. I have always been a sweets kinda girl, not so much a potato chips, or even soda, thank goodness. I just love treats! I've been aware that I should be more public health:) and stop eating so much sugar, because it's not healthy for me, but despite previous attempts, I've never really cut back.  My weight's never been an issue, and it's hard to motivate myself just by "knowing" it's healthier.  I thought I'd be better about it now having braces, but I really haven't been.  The last few days though, I've been testing my willpower.  When I reach for a sugary treat, I've stopped myself a few times.  When ever I think to myself, "This is the last one..." I stop and don't eat it.  It's been really exciting!  To actually see that I can exercise my willpower and make improvements.  I mean, it's only been a few days, and I know I'll never get to the point when I no longer eat sugar, but it's already boosted my feelings of self-efficacy.

Yummmmmaaay!

I think one reason it's been easier for me to decrease my sugar intake is getting a gym pass because I've been working out a lot more lately.  I studied public health, and my area of interest is everything to do with weight, eating, body dismorphia, society's stigmatism, etc.  

People sometimes ask me, which is more important, eating healthy or working out?  The answer isn't what they want to hear, but it's really "Both."  They are two wings of the health airplane.  Neither is sufficient.  Together, neither has do work as hard.  

But.  If we're talking about weight and it's strictly math, then I'll tell you: diet is more important.  I say this because it's far, far easier to control calorie intake than to work out.  Eat one chocolate chip cookie, it takes 20 seconds.  But it takes about 30 minutes on the treadmill to burn those calories off.  Wow, right?  Daily caloric intake can vary by literally thousands of calories, but we can (sustainably) only change how many calories we use up by a few hundred by working out.

But human beings aren't that mathematical.  We don't eat for math.  We eat for emotion, pleasure, society. And working out helps control the appetite.  Some say they're hungrier when they work out.  True.  BUT they have fewer cravings.  Because while hunger, or the physiological need to eat is increased, appetite, or the psychological desire to eat is decreased.  So you might eat more at meals, but you won't be binging or eating as many treats. And your higher muscle mass will burn more calories.

Exercise bathes the brain in healthy and happy neurotransmitters.  That is why exercise is always encouraged for people dealing with psychological issues.  When you get that stimulation, you need it less from other sources.

So, maybe a better way of saying it is that intake is more important than output when it comes to weight. However, intake is best managed by a) proper intake habits and balances b) working out. So, yeah, both are essential, their's just no getting around it:)