By now, I’m sure that you’ve seen a hundred articles about how to cut back on your caloric intake going into 2025, but my approach to eating is the opposite. I think everyone should eat more. Diet culture is broken and leaves people feeling demoralized, hungry, and guilty about food under the guise of health. Let’s move away from that, and put something better in its place—a focus on a relatively unrestricted mix of nutrient-dense foods.
Now, this is not an open invitation to eat more of whatever you want. Instead, we need to understand more about how calories—energy—work in conjunction with nutrients. Calories are a measure of potential energy in our food, and they come through macronutrients (proteins, fats, and carbohydrates). Our body breaks down these sources to unlock potential energy and turns that into usable energy for our bodies, which we call ATP. (Remember high school biology? Good.) Once we get this usable energy, we then feel energized. Charged up. Ready to work. You cannot feel energized without energy, which is one reason we shouldn’t be demonizing food.
While there is no standardized definition of nutrient density, it’s usually used to compare how many vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients are in a food with how many calories it has. High-nutrient, low-calorie foods like fruits, vegetables, lean meats, and fish help with reactions in the body that turn calories into usable energy. Conversely, energy-dense foods have a lot of calories in relatively small quantities. These aren’t inherently “bad”—no food is, to be honest—however, they are usually higher in fat, which packs more calories per gram of food than protein or carbs. To make energy-dense foods work in your diet, you also want them to be nutrient-dense (think avocados, eggs, or nuts).
Often, this is why critics call out “ultra-processed foods” like sugary cereals, sodas, chips, and candy. The problem isn’t that they’re processed, which can help keep our food safe; it’s that they are energy-dense (high in calories) without being nutrient-dense, riddled with preservatives and additives, and are doing very little to deliver the help we need to get the energy out of our food and promote long-term well-being. Many food companies know this, so they attempt to “fortify” the foods with nutrients post-production. It’s a trick—the fiber from white bread after processing just ain’t the same as fiber from an avocado. Research hints that when people eat the proper mix of nutrient-dense and energy-dense foods, they actually end up eating more food overall but take in fewer calories versus individuals who eat an energy-rich but nutrient-poor diet.
Of course, if you want to lose weight, severely cutting back on calories quickly is one way to do this, but this may not be best for the body in the long term (especially if you want the proper body composition of having enough muscle and enough fat). If weight loss is your goal, drastic caloric restriction is a short-term intervention. It can’t be done forever. Weight loss needs to be maintained through a long-term eating strategy to promote well-being, so you don’t simply regain the weight you lost. A nutrient-dense, whole-food diet is a strategy that seems to be the best long-term.
I’d also posit that the feelings of hunger aren’t as bothersome if you eat a nutrient-dense diet, reducing the chances of overeating. Your metabolism might function better. Your body’s energy levels can increase. Then, as you have enough of the right energy coming into your body, you begin mixing in activity and exercise to ensure that you’re using nutrients to fuel your work and keep you satiated throughout the day. Don’t get lost in thinking that you have to “earn” what you eat by exercise. Too many people think they have to eat nothing and move a lot in order to be healthy, but this isn’t the way.
So that’s my advice. Find your zone. Eat more (of the right foods for you). Move enough. Indulge here and there. And perhaps most importantly, don’t forget to enjoy life. Let’s have a great year.
