Fueling Your Potential: The Importance of Caloric Balance for Better Aesthetics and Athletic Performance
Calories In: Understanding Macros and Micronutrients
Calories are units of energy our bodies derive from the foods and beverages we consume. This energy is crucial for daily functions and activities.
Macronutrients
Carbohydrates: the body's primary energy source.
Proteins: essential for muscle repair and growth.
Fats: vital for hormone production, brain health, and energy.
Micronutrients
Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals required in smaller quantities but are no less important. They “enable the body to produce enzymes, hormones and other substances needed for normal growth and development.” (WHO)
Calories Out: Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)
"Calories out" involves several components:
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): calories needed for basic functions at rest.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT): energy expended from spontaneous daily activity.
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): energy required to digest, absorb, and metabolize food.
Exercise: energy expended during physical activities and exercise.
Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is the total amount of calories burned in a day = BMR + NEAT + TEF + Exercise.
Caloric Balance: The Intersection of Health, Performance, and Aesthetics
Caloric balance is the relationship between "calories in" and "calories out.” This balance is very important for health, body recomposition or composition, and athletic performance. Kaizen Fitness Performance’s Nutritional Guidance helps you determine this for your specific needs and can give you nutrition protocols, meals, or macros personalized to your goals, nutrition preferences, and habits.
Caloric Balance for Body Recomposition
Caloric balance is the key factor in body recomposition (PMID18025815, 2007). To lose weight, you need a caloric deficit, meaning you burn more calories than you consume, while gaining weight requires a caloric surplus, meaning you eat more calories than you burn. This balance forms the foundation for body recomposition. Building on this foundation, we find that protein timing and frequency play an important role. Research shows that eating meals with significant protein more frequently is strongly linked to increased lean mass and decreased body fat (PMID27086196, 2013). Additionally, increasing dietary protein during caloric restriction can improve diet quality and may help reduce lean body mass loss (PMID35538903, 2016).
While protein timing and frequency are important, caloric balance is a more important factor for effectively achieving your body composition goals. Ultimately, food and macronutrient choices should align with individual preferences as long as they support the fundamental principle of caloric balance.
Caloric Balance for Health
As we will see, caloric balance is essential for staying healthy. Research shows that having higher body fat content is linked to an increased risk of mortality (PMID35717418, 2022) and that losing weight or reducing body fat can really improve health markers such as ones connected to inflammation or cholesterol (PMID30390883, 2018; PMID12055705, 2001). Maintaining a healthy and sustainable body fat percentage (there are some ranges suggested by this review PMID8615340, 1996) is also beneficial to your health. Not only can being far above these guidelines negatively impact your health, but also being far below these ranges can cause problems like muscle loss, hormonal imbalances, psychological issues, and negative effects on the cardiovascular system (PMID28530498, 2018). So, with all that in mind, maintaining a caloric balance that can get you to or maintain you at those ranges is key to keeping you healthy and feeling your best.
Caloric Balance for Athletic-Specific Performance
For athletes, managing caloric intake is essential to ensure they have enough energy for training, competition, and recovery. Maintaining caloric balance is crucial for student-athletes to support their academic and athletic endeavors. Ensuring adequate energy intake should be the first priority to support overall health and performance. Research has long shown that prolonged caloric restriction and low energy availability can lead to negative consequences such as poor bone health, fatigue, limited recovery from injuries, menstrual dysfunction in female athletes, and poor performance (PMID9637194, 1998). Matching caloric intake to your activities and stressors is vital. Eating enough is the first step to ensuring your body recovers and rebuilds properly, reducing the risk of these adverse effects. Once energy balance is achieved, athletes can then focus on optimizing their nutrition with the right macronutrients, micronutrients, meal timing, and frequency. Prioritizing adequate caloric intake sets the foundation for better recovery, performance, and overall health, allowing for fine-tuning with other dietary components to maximize athletic and academic success.
Historical Misunderstandings
Common Misunderstandings and Controversies
Despite its importance, the concept of caloric balance is often overlooked and miscommunicated to the masses creating several historical controversies:
The debate over whether weight management is solely about balancing calories consumed with calories burned, and if certain macronutrients or meal timing play more significant roles.
The dispute over the importance of the quality of calories (nutrient-dense foods) versus simply the quantity of calories in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.
The arguments about the role of hormones like insulin, leptin, and ghrelin in weight management and whether they can override the basic principle of caloric balance.
The debate on whether intermittent fasting is a more effective strategy for weight loss
And many more…
Caloric balance is at the heart of many nutrition and weight management debates. While there are different factors that contribute to this balance, and some argue that things like macronutrient composition and meal timing matter more, it all comes back to calories consumed versus calories burned. It could be true that prolonged calorie restriction can slow down metabolism, making weight loss tougher. It could also be true that hormones like insulin or leptin play a role in hunger or fat storage. Yet, these factors need to be factored or re-factored into our calculations of our daily expenditure. If you are not losing or gaining weight at your goal rate, you might need to readjust your food intake by increasing or decreasing caloric intake or output until you finally see the change that you want. When it comes to the quality of calories, it is true that nutrient-dense foods can help you feel more satiated or burn a couple more calories with their thermic effect, but it’s still about the total calories you’re eating. You will still gain weight if you eat more “healthy” food than what you burn, and many misunderstand this idea.
The Importance of Understanding Caloric Balance
Understanding caloric balance is very important. All those factors, such as hormonal changes, nutrient density, or meal timing, influence caloric balance, and it is important to emphasize that no individual factor operates in isolation. It is misguided to preach about the magical effects of certain foods or hormones without talking about their effect on caloric balance.
Focusing on caloric balance allows for flexible nutrition, enabling individuals to adapt their eating habits to meet their goals without feeling restricted. This flexibility helps avoid the pitfalls of trendy diets, which often impose unnecessary limitations. Furthermore, a solid grasp of caloric balance promotes the development of sustainable, long-term eating habits instead of relying on temporary fixes.
Educating individuals about caloric balance is empowering. It enables them to make informed nutritional choices that foster a positive relationship with food and support overall well-being. This understanding is the foundation for developing healthy, balanced eating patterns that are sustainable over the long term, reducing the risks of chronic diseases and/or optimizing athletic performance. By focusing on caloric balance, individuals can create satisfying and nutritious meal plans, personalize their nutrition to meet specific needs and adopt a flexible approach that allows for variety and enjoyment. Ultimately, this knowledge leads to better health and performance outcomes, empowering people to take control of their nutrition and achieve lasting benefits for their physical and mental well-being.
If you are unsure where to begin in the process of educating yourself and making the necessary changes to understand caloric balance, or if you have experience working within this balance but want to take your nutrition to the next level, head to this link to sign up for KFP’s Personalized Nutrition Coaching!
Resources and Research:
Jayedi A, Khan TA, Aune D, Emadi A, Shab-Bidar S. Body fat and risk of all-cause mortality: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. Int J Obes (Lond). 2022 Sep;46(9):1573-1581. doi: 10.1038/s41366-022-01165-5. Epub 2022 Jun 18. PMID: 35717418.
Bianchi VE. Weight loss is a critical factor to reduce inflammation. Clin Nutr ESPEN. 2018 Dec;28:21-35. doi: 10.1016/j.clnesp.2018.08.007. Epub 2018 Sep 3. PMID: 30390883.
Pasanisi F, Contaldo F, de Simone G, Mancini M. Benefits of sustained moderate weight loss in obesity. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2001 Dec;11(6):401-6. PMID: 12055705.
Abernathy RP, Black DR. Healthy body weights: an alternative perspective. Am J Clin Nutr. 1996 Mar;63(3 Suppl):448S-451S. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/63.3.448. PMID: 8615340.
Fagerberg P. Negative Consequences of Low Energy Availability in Natural Male Bodybuilding: A Review. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2018 Jul 1;28(4):385-402. doi: 10.1123/ijsnem.2016-0332. Epub 2018 May 3. PMID: 28530498.
Strasser B, Spreitzer A, Haber P. Fat loss depends on energy deficit only, independently of the method for weight loss. Ann Nutr Metab. 2007;51(5):428-32. doi: 10.1159/000111162. Epub 2007 Nov 20. PMID: 18025815.
Arciero PJ, Ormsbee MJ, Gentile CL, Nindl BC, Brestoff JR, Ruby M. Increased protein intake and meal frequency reduces abdominal fat during energy balance and energy deficit. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013 Jul;21(7):1357-66. doi: 10.1002/oby.20296. Epub 2013 May 23. PMID: 23703835.
Longland TM, Oikawa SY, Mitchell CJ, Devries MC, Phillips SM. Higher compared with lower dietary protein during an energy deficit combined with intense exercise promotes greater lean mass gain and fat mass loss: a randomized trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2016 Mar;103(3):738-46. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.115.119339. Epub 2016 Jan 27. PMID: 26817506.
Thompson JL. Energy balance in young athletes. Int J Sport Nutr. 1998 Jun;8(2):160-74. doi: 10.1123/ijsn.8.2.160. PMID: 9637194.