--- title: Should You Count Calories description: Plain sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie, turkey or Tofurkey, a calorie is still a calorie. At least, that’s what dieters have been told for the past half-century. Now, experts don't agree canonical: https://time.com/2988142/you-asked-are-all-calories-created-equal/ author: Markham Heid article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-16T12:00:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:12.211Z article:section: Health og:title: You Asked: Are Calories Created Equal? og:description: Plain sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie, turkey or Tofurkey, a calorie is still a calorie. At least, that’s what dieters have been told for the past half-century. Now, experts don't agree og:url: https://time.com/2988142/you-asked-are-all-calories-created-equal/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfba16b82440495db/69869be3d0b6f26ba73054bc/time-calories.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: time-calories og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: You Asked: Are Calories Created Equal? twitter:description: Plain sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie, turkey or Tofurkey, a calorie is still a calorie. At least, that’s what dieters have been told for the past half-century. Now, experts don't agree twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfba16b82440495db/69869be3d0b6f26ba73054bc/time-calories.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # You Asked: Are All Calories Created Equal? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=49e5d6fe-b7de-4a55-b1ae-0363a36fe088&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Truth About Fat [Watch (HLS stream): The Truth About Fat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uYGhfNfS.m3u8) (5:15)  _Published 2014-06-12. When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you're not alone_ by [Markham Heid](https://time.com/author/markham-heid/) ## Markham Heid Markham Heid is a contributor at TIME. He is the author of The Habit Trap, due out in early 2027. Jul 16, 2014 12:00 PM UTC  Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME by [Markham Heid](https://time.com/author/markham-heid/) ## Markham Heid Markham Heid is a contributor at TIME. He is the author of The Habit Trap, due out in early 2027. Jul 16, 2014 12:00 PM UTC “By and large, we’ve been taking an accounting approach to weight loss,” says Dr. David Ludwig, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. By that he means, health scientists have traditionally focused on the number of calories coming in versus the number of calories going out. But there are a lot of problems with that approach, he says. For one thing, it’s _really_ tough to accurately keep track of your daily calorie intake. “Being off by just 100 calories a day could add up to a hundred pounds over a lifetime,” he says. If burning more calories than you consume would keep you skinny, a low-fat diet should be the answer to all your diet prayers. That’s because, compared to protein or carbohydrates, fat contains roughly twice the number of calories, ounce for ounce. But Ludwig says low-fat diets have proved ineffective when it comes to losing weight. “Mediterranean or low-carbohydrate diets outperform a low-fat diet every time, and that wouldn’t be true if calories were the only measure that mattered,” he adds. (Mediterranean diets and others like the now-trendy Paleo diet are both high in fat, comparatively speaking.) In reality, Ludwig says the body responds differently to calories from different sources. “Your weight is regulated by a complex system of genetic factors, hormonal factors, and neurological input, and not all calories affect this system the same way,” he explains. As for fat: “Some naturally high-fat foods are among the most healthful we can eat in terms of promoting weight loss and reducing risk for diabetes and heart disease,” he explains, listing off foods like nuts, avocados, and many types of fish. “If you’re counting calories, you would want to eat these foods sparingly because they’re dense in calories. But they’re also very filing.” ### You Asked: Your Top 10 Health Questions Answered  You Asked: Are Cleanses Healthy? Potions that claim to clear your body of toxins might sound alluring, but do they deliver? Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Eating Dessert Really That Bad For Me? Bad news for sweet-eaters—except if you end your meals with this kind of treat. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: What’s the Best Way to Whiten My Teeth? Yes, teeth whitening actually works—but here's why you have to dish out major bucks to see results. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Meditation Really Worth It? From easing stress to lowering heart disease risk, focusing your mind can do some amazing things for your body. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: What’s the Healthiest Sweetener? Take a taste of the unsettled science of sweeteners. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Should I Go Paleo? The pros and cons of eating like a caveman. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Cracking Your Knuckles Bad? Here's what really happens to your joints when you snap, crackle and pop. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Is Running on a Treadmill as Good as Running Outside? You'll fool your body into thinking it's outside with this one small treadmill tweak. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: Does Laughing Have Real Health Benefits? Here's proof that everybody could use a belly laugh. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME  You Asked: What Is My Poo Telling Me? If you listen hard enough, you'll hear all kinds of health stories from #2. Illustration by Peter Oumanski for TIME Refined carbohydrates, on the other hand—like those found in white bread, cookies, crackers, and breakfast cereals—raise your blood’s level of the hormone insulin, which signals to your body that it needs to store fat cells. Also referred to as high-glycemic foods, these refined carbs pass through your digestive system quickly—which is why you can eat a whole bag of potato chips and feel hungry 15 minutes later, Ludwig says. Dr. Richard Feinman, a professor of cell biology at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, compares insulin to a faucet handle. The more your blood’s amount of the hormone rises, the more the faucet opens and the more fat your body stores. Feinman has looked at calories from the perspective of thermodynamics—or the laws that govern heat and energy. Like Ludwig, he says the idea that calories from different macronutrient sources would have the same effect on your body is silly. Put simply, it doesn’t make sense that “a calorie is a calorie” because your body uses the energy from different foods in a variety of ways, Feinman explains. The big lesson here is that people need to look at food as not just a collection of calories, experts say. By cutting out refined carbs and eating more protein and healthy fats, which help you stay full without triggering the storage of fat cells, “You can work with, as opposed to against, your body’s internal weight-control systems,” he says. “That will make weight loss more natural and easy.” The best part: You can put away the calculator. No more calories counting. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] There's something we all enjoy about staying for dinner. You ever thought why? What was on your dinner table when you were younger? Chances are it had a lot to do with, what your doctor was telling you is healthy. Building a strong healthy body is like building a strong, beautiful building. If the foundation is weak, the whole building will be weak. It takes five fingers to point the way to healthful eating habits. Well, here we go. For years, the government published dietary guidelines. Meant to keep Americans healthy. There's a great deal to learn. Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are. The body needs certain substances to live and grow. And remember, your body isn't just like an automobile. For years, the key measures of those guidelines were the same, cut fat from your diet. The committee's original report urged Americans to reduce their risk of heart attack. By reducing their intake of cholesterol down to the equivalent of about one egg a day. And those guidelines had an effect. From 1977 to 2012, per capita consumption of eggs fell by 9 %, beef by 37 %, whole milk by 72 %. Calories from saturated fat fell, while calories from supposedly safe carbohydrates increased. As one expert put it, it was a vast nutritional experiment. With nearly a million American's a year dropping dead from heart disease in the mid 80s, we had to try something. Nearly four decades later results are in. The experiment was a failure. Americans are sicker than they've ever been before. The prevalence of diabetes has gone up 157 % from 1980 to 2011. Nearly one in ten Americans now has the disease. Causing the public health system $ 245 billion a year. Heart disease is still the number one killer in the country. Americans are as obese as ever. So, what went wrong? Good old granola. Great for taste but loaded with fat. It doesn't take much of imagine a leap to assume that fat would make us fat, clog our arteries and raise the risk of heart disease. It turns out that saturated fat is a lot more complicated than we think. Carbohydrates and fats are nutrients. Like man, you need nutrients to live and grow. [ MUSIC ] Firstly, there are two kinds of cholesterol. LDL which is linked to heart disease and HDL which can be protective. Fats that course through the blood are known as triglycerides and high levels of those are linked to heart disease. Saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol but also raises HDL. Moving LDL buildup on arterial walls. So raising both, makes saturated fat a cardio wash. One key piece of information is that LDL seems to come in two forms. Large and fluffy, small and dense. Those smaller particles are linked to heart disease, while the larger ones are mostly benign. Saturated fat increases the number of large particles. The opposite happens with carbs. I don't get it. Researchers have long since discovered the kind of fats found in olives and in fish like salmon. Are actually heart protective. Now it turns out the fats found in meat and dairy, aren't as bad as we feared before. So that means by focusing so much on fats. We may actually have been making ourselves sicker. So, she brings up the subject of reduced- fat cheese. It's a fat- free [ UNKNOWN ]. Fat- free, cholesterol free. Low- fat granola. Reduced- fat Kettle chips. Reduced- fat Chips Ahoy. Lowfat cottage cheese. Non- fat yogurt is the perfect example. The thinking for consumers was simple. Fat was dangerous. This product had no fat. Therefore, it must be healthy. It's non- fat, which means less calories. [ MUSIC ] But amid the confusion about fat, we end up replacing it in our diets with sugars and carbohydrates, which meant our calorie intake was actually going up. When carbs and things like corn and white bread are ingested into your body, their converted into sugars. Those sugars convert to insulin cuz it's fat cells go into storage overdrive, leading to weight gain. Since fewer calories are then left to fill the body, you begin to feel hungry it means our metabolism begins to slow down in effort to save energy, we eat more and we gain more weight, never quite feeling full. As this process repeats, our cells become more resistant to insulin, which causes us to gain more weight, which increases insulin resistance in a vicious circle. Cut calories, and people just get hungrier. Obesity, diabetes, high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol can all follow. Study after study has found it's very difficult to lose weight on a very low- fat diet. Possibly because fat and meat can produce a sense of satiety, that's hard to achieve with carbs, making it easier to simply stop eating. But it isn't just the increase in carbs that affects us. These processed, low saturated fat alternatives, come loaded with sugars, salt, preservatives, and even some unhealthy fats. So what's the real alternative? As one extra puts it, the cold hard truth about diet is that the only way to eat well, is to eat well. You'll be happier and you'll be healthier, if you focus on real whole foods, whether they have fat or not. Got it. 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