CONNECT | GROW | TRANSFORM

And if a calorie is not a calorie — if we can’t reliably know how much of it is absorbed, how much is lost in digestion, and what its metabolic fate will be — then how would anyone know how many calories to cut? Are people expected to constantly battle with calorie math, obsess over every bite, track every number on an app, and then feel guilty for “going over” — even though the body never sees those calories the way the food label does?

So while calories tell us how much potential energy a food contains, they tell us nothing about how your body will respond to that food. Two foods with identical calorie counts can have dramatically different effects on hunger, hormones, and fat storage.

Progesterone and estrogen repeatedly stimulate breast tissue and the uterine lining. Without the “breaks” of pregnancy and lactation, this repeated turnover is thought to increase the risk of fibroids, endometriosis, and possibly breast and endometrial cancers.