Dear DOCTOR Owen:

In previous articles, I have seen your descriptions of the calories in various food products. I read a book that promoted counting fat grams instead of calories. This seems easier than remembering every food product on the planet. Do you ever recommend counting fat grams?

Gram Kracker

Dear “Kracker”:

If you are counting fat grams, you are counting calories. You are just doing a very poor job of it. Now tell me, quickly—“How many fat grams are there in a handful of peanuts?” “In a bag of popcorn?” “In the ham sandwich someone just handed you?” “How about those deviled eggs?”

Quick is how fast you decide to eat something that is thrust in front of you at a party, a wedding reception, or any other social encounter. Quick is how fast you decide on a dessert after looking at the restaurant menu. Quick is how fast you nail down 1200 calories of mostly fat. Where is your fat gram book now? How fast will it take you to look up each item—forever?

The 6-page calorie system (see the HMR Calorie System™ in the Appendix in the back of this book) used at my clinic has “anchor” points for each food group. For instance, seafood is 25 calories/ounce; poultry, 50 calories/ounce; and red meats, 125 calories/ounce. You have just mastered meats! If you fry the meat, then multiply the number of calories by 4. Done. The same simple method works for condiments, baked goods, vegetables, fruit, and beverages. That’s it. Yet, I have medical doctors and engineers as patients who have never mastered the tables and Special Ed children as patients who master them in 10 weeks. The calorie system isn’t rocket science but it must be learned!

One gram of fat has 9 calories. One gram of carbohydrate or protein has 4 calories. If a food product lists number of grams, simply multiply the grams of fat by 9 and the others by 4. Then divide the fat by the protein and carbohydrate calories and you have the percentage fat. Anything more than 30% will harden you arteries more quickly. You need only clutter your brain with 9/4. Nine and four. That’s it!

It takes some practice with the “anchor points” to estimate the number of calories in a serving of food. You simply have to estimate the weight in ounces. On average, it takes a patient approximately 3 seconds to figure this out. If the item is red meat, you estimate 8 ounces, and then you know that it has 125/calories/ounce, or 1000 calories. To burn off 1000 calories, you would have to walk 10 miles. Sometimes “worth it” means doing intense exercise to burn off those calories. In the right atmosphere with a quality piece of red meat, it might be “worth it.”

How hard is that? Not very!

Weight gain results from taking in more calories than you need to run your internal organs—period! If you are gaining and do not think, feel, believe, or hope that you are not exceeding your basal needs—you need help. Why spend serious amounts of time, energy, and money exercising, on medicines, incurring doctor bills, or going on diets that don’t help you learn how to be successful and stay that way? It sure beats me.