Brigid TitgemeierBeingBrigid Functional Nutrition · Transforming Women's Health Using Food as Medicine

Why Calorie Counting Backfires with Dr. Sarah Berry

6 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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1:03

In this segment Dr. Sarah Berry explains why strict calorie counting often fails. She first describes the body's evolutionary defenses against famine: when calorie intake is deliberately reduced, the body increases hunger signals and lowers metabolic rate, making weight loss harder. She then highlights that not all foods with identical ingredient lists deliver the same usable calories because the food matrix influences digestion and absorption. Using almonds as an example, she notes that whole almonds versus finely ground almonds can differ by about 30% in the calories actually absorbed, illustrating how food structure can dramatically affect caloric impact.

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Our bodies have evolved to be able to handle times of famine. We have evolved to be able to handle scarcity in food. Therefore as soon as we start counting the calories in and the calories out, our body puts in different mechanisms to try and protect us from that weight loss. One is the natural hunger drive becomes more pronounced and then also our metabolism changes. We go into a state of being very efficient with our metabolism so our metabolic rate reduces. You're feeling more hungry and you're burning less calories. And then the second reason is because of the food itself. You can have foods that have identical ingredients, identical backer pack labelling but actually can have very different impact in terms of how many calories we extract from them and also how we metabolize them. Almonds for example, if we consume whole almonds or we consume finely ground almonds, there's a huge difference of about 30% on average in terms of the amount of calories that we actually absorb because of the magical food matrix.