JohnBarban.com

The Claim: Certain foods cause you to burn more calories digesting them than others

Answer: FACT

Protein actually has a slightly higher thermic effect than carbs or fat. In other words it takes a bit more energy to digest and metabolize protein. But this effect is minimal and will never help you actually lose body fat.

The thermic effect of protein might add up to at most 10% of the food eaten. In other words, it would be eating 1000 calories in order to burn 100. This is a pointless road to travel if your goal is fat loss.

Just eat less total calories to burn fat, and don’t bother concerning yourself with the composition of those calories.

John

In the previous post I asked you all to guess at the calorie count on a banana nut muffing and a bowl of home made pasta with a light sauce.

The real calorie count of each are as follows:

Muffin = 390 calories

Pasta Bowl = 407

If you guessed they were the same you were right.

The point of this exercise was to show two things.

1) We all seem to have a much different assumption about calories in a given food. If you scan the guesses in the comment section some people were guessing as much as three times as many calories as other people. Clearly as a society we’re not all on the same page with our assumptions about calories. Some of us are in completely different books!

2) Two different foods of wildly different appearance and size can have the same calories. The pasta is in a full sized pasta bowl. It was home made and had a light sauce based with some chicken broth, corn starch, some orange bell peppers and some chunks of onion and basil (and a touch of garlic…tasty stuff)

The muffin is just a standard commercial muffin you could find at most coffee shops.

Awareness of the food you are eating and the amount of calories in that food goes a long way for helping you lose weight (if that is your goal)

I’m guessing some of you will be a bit surprised at this answer, and some of you hit the nail right on the head with your guess.

If you had to choose between the two, which one would you rather eat? Or would you just hit em’ both! Or go half and half?…or both of these plus a pizza! ha!

Anyway, let me know what you’d do if both of these items were on the table in front of you right now.

John

Many people who are trying to lose weight underestimate how many calories are in the food that they eat. This adds to the frustration and confusion of the battle to lose weight.

The following two pictures are of a banana muffin and a bowl of homemade pasta with a light garlic and basil sauce.

Take a guess at the total calories of each and put your answer in the comment section below.

(I’ll reveal the real amount of calories in both in a couple days)

Banana Nut Muffin

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Pasta Bowl

Pasta Bowl

John