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Insulin Vs. Calories —Which controls the Body Fat Thermostat?

I’ve read hundreds of weight loss studies and this is one of my favorites. Controlling the Body Fat Thermostat — Part 9

There is a saying — ‘a calorie is a calorie’. This usually implies that all calories are equally fattening.

It’s sneaky to say this because obviously a calorie is a calorie, just as a dog is a dog, but it is not at all obvious that all calories are equally fattening. 100 calories of cookies and 100 calories of broccoli have the same calories. Are they therefore equally fattening? The fact that the cookies will stimulate completely different hormones than the broccoli is considered irrelevant.

Suppose you eat 100 calories of cookies vs 100 calories of broccoli.

Are the hormonal responses completely different? Yes. This is a well-established fact.

Do different hormones affect body fat differently? Yes. This is a well-established fact.

Therefore — why would anybody with even a tiny brain think that all calories are equally fattening?

What confuses the issue is that there is a major overlap between calories, which is the physical energy contained within a food, and insulin, which is a hormone stimulated by eating certain food. This is not a 1 to 1 correlation in that some foods will have a robust insulin response (eg. white bread) where others (eg. butter) has a minimal insulin response.

All foods are composed of varying proportions of the three macronutrients — fat, protein and carbohydrates. Many factors, including what proportion each of those macros contribute to the insulin effect of foods. But for any given food, with mixed assortment of carbs, proteins and fats, the more you eat, the more the insulin response.

If insulin is one of the main hormones that causes increased weight (see It’s the Insulin, Stupid), then this is the only implication:

Some foods are more fattening than other foods.

That doesn’t seem that controversial. Cookies are more fattening than broccoli. Candy is more fattening than eggs. Cake is more fattening than salmon…