I wish they'd get rid of "calories" it's irrelevant.
The continued emphasis on “calories” is not only outdated but fundamentally misleading. Caloric measurement is an oversimplified and reductionist approach to health and nutrition. It fails to reflect the complex regulatory systems of human metabolism, individual differences in energy expenditure, and the profoundly different metabolic effects of macronutrients.
The notion that “a calorie is a calorie” ignores the fact that carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are metabolized through distinct biochemical pathways and exert different hormonal effects—particularly on insulin, satiety, and fat storage. For example, 100 calories of sugar is not metabolically equivalent to 100 calories of protein or fat.
If you’re trying to lose weight, reducing refined carbohydrates and emphasizing protein and healthy fats—while eating to satiety—tends to be far more effective than simply slashing calories. This approach aligns better with how the body actually regulates hunger, energy balance, and fat storage.
It’s time to move beyond the calorie and toward a more nuanced, biologically informed understanding of nutrition.
What you are saying is definitely true, but it's almost impossible to have a consistent metric (that works as a good approximation of energy taken in and burned) to track your diet with nutrition make up, especially for weight loss, at least currently. Both food labeling and sensor tech need to evolve to make this work. As it is right now, calories count is still the best way to numerically track for weight loss, despite its simplifications and deficiencies.