You want to lose weight. You’ve tried just about every fad diet known to man, but right now you are heavier than ever and want a solution.
Calorie counting is a much-debated method of weight control, with a long history. To see what all the fuss was about, I tried it myself and ended up doing it for two years. You can read about my experience below.
Does calorie counting work? Yes, it absolutely can.
Should you try it? That is a very individual question. In this post I want to help you to understand if calorie counting is for you, as FOR SURE it is not for everyone.
Frst of all let‛s discuss the pros and cons of calorie counting.
Pros and cons of calorie counting
The pros – the good stuff
- It can deliver very good results. IF you are diligent and consistent
- It gives you small, achievable goals to work towards, which is motivating and makes it easier to stick to
- You get a good awareness of how much energy different foods provide
- Can lead to better food choices, as you try to avoid junk and convenience food which are loaded with calories
- You don’t have to give up any specific foods – nothing is off the menu
The cons – the bad stuff
- When you first start it takes a looooong time to track everything
- It requires a lot of discipline and dedication in order for it to work
- It is not very accurate:
- nutritional values on food labels can be incredibly inaccurate*
- most people are terrible at estimating portion sizes
- There is no consideration for the nutritional content of the food, so you could end up choosing to eat, for example, a sugar loaded low fat yoghurt rather than healthy raw nuts because the yoghurt has fewer calories
- It can easily become an obsession and lead to disordered eating patterns
*The FDA in the US allows a 20% margin of error on nutrition labels.. This is a HUGE discrepency. Say you eat something and it states that it contains 250 kCal. It could actually contain up to 300 kCal and still be compliant with legislation!
In the EU there is no definite margin and the numbers are allowed to be based on calculations using “average values of the ingredients used or calculations from generally established and accepted data”. We’d better hope those “average values” are accurate.
Do I recommend calorie counting?
I think calorie counting has its place, and it can deliver excellent results.
Would I recommend it to everyone trying to lose weight?
No way.
If there was one silver bullet method of losing weight that would work for everyone, then we wouldn’t be in the midst of an obesity epidemic, where worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 1975.
Weight loss is a very individual topic and there is no “one size fits all” approach.
In regards to calorie counting, first of all it definitely does NOT suit everyone.
Secondly, it doesn’t take into account the nutritional value of the food you are eating. If you aren’t savvy about the mix of nutrients your body needs, then calorie counting could leave you missing key elements.
You may try desperately to avoid anything which uses up too much of your daily allowance. Items such as raw nuts, avocados, olive oil and oily fish could be left off your menu, as you think they contain too many calories. In reality, they contain healthy fats, which your body and brain need to function properly.
That being said, there are some people who are well suited to calorie counting, so if you are still keen then read on.
Would calorie counting work for you?
In my opinion, calorie counting could work well for you if you:
- Are very diligent and are willing to weigh your food, check all the food labels, track everything you consume
- Want to have a simple goal to work towards each day
- Already have a basic knowledge about nutrition; understand what protein, fats and carbs are, and that your body needs all of them to function
- Want to lose weight without having to give up any of your favourite foods
If you are going to try it, I suggest you use it as a short term strategy to:
- better understand the calorie density of foods, particularly those you eat often
- kick start your weight loss journey by having daily goals to work towards
Once you have your eating under control, or have reached your goal weight, I would move on to more sustainable ways of eating.
Sustainable ways of eating
Calorie counting can have its place, at least in the short term.
In the long term, I highly recommend finding an approach that works for you sustainably and as a life-long way of eating, NOT a short-term diet.
At some point I will dedicate a more detailed post on this, as this is a topic close to my heart. For now, though, I have two top suggestions.
One: Precision Nutrition have an excellent approach, using your hands for portion sizes.
Two: a useful technique is mindful eating. This way of eating makes it much easier to tell when you are full and also to fully experience what you are eating.
When they eat this way, some people realise that, actually, the fast food burger and fries just doesn’t taste as good as they thought it did.
A personal trainer’s experience with calorie counting
Why I started calorie counting
I first decided to try calorie counting more as an experiment than anything. I was a newly qualified personal trainer, and wanted to test if this concept really worked or not.
In the past I hadn’t looked into calories in much detail before, but during my personal training education we visited a supermarket to check out the nutrition labels on a whole host of products.
Some of the items really surprised me! It brought it home just how easy it would be to gain weight if you didn’t have any awareness and ate a diet full of snack and convenience food.
The pain in the backside first days
I decided to give it a go. My calorie counting journey started with calculating the number of calories I would aim for, using a calorie calculator like this one.
I then set myself up on the MyFitnessPal app, as my research showed that the food database seemed more complete than others.
The first few days were a pain in the backside. Every time I ate or drank something I had to search in the app to find that item, or scan the barcode to find it, or add it in manually if I couldn’t find something similar, AND make sure the portion size was accurate.
Things get easier
I persevered though, and after a week or so it started to get MUCH quicker.
The app remembers items you have used before, so they become quickly selectable. After a couple of weeks I found that I didn’t need to manually add items very often.
You can set up whole meals, so if you often have the same thing for breakfast you can add it with just one click.
From this point onwards I found it pretty simple and got into the rhythm of eating and then adding my meals into the app.
Obsession
Personally, I got excellent results calorie counting. It suited me as I knew my objective for each day and I (like most people) find it easier to stick to something when working towards a goal.
It was also easier to make healthy food choices: junk food is so loaded with calories that it would quickly eat up my daily allowance; by choosing unprocessed “real” food I could eat WAY more.
The problem was that it ended up becoming a bit of an obsession.
Even once I had reached my goal and was aiming for weight maintenance I was obsessively tracking every calorie.
I would find myself calculating exactly how much of a chicken breast I should eat for dinner to not push me over my daily allowance.
I’d do a long, intense workout to use extra energy, so that I could drink some wine that evening without exceeding my goal.
If one of my clients told me how militant they had become with calorie counting, I would have shown real concern and gently tried to steer them away from it.
We never seem to show the same level of compassion to ourselves as we do to others though. It took me a long time to realise that what I was doing wasn’t healthy.
Eventually I realised it was time to stop. I came to the conclusion that the behaviour I was exhibiting was:
- not healthy
- didn’t make sense, as calorie counting is not an exact science
- not how I wanted to live my life
Life after calorie counting
When I decided to stop I was nervous.
I had spent around 2 years diligently tracking what I was eating and now I was going to stop. How would I know how much I could eat each day?
It didn’t take long to feel the relief though. It was like a chain that I was attached to had been released and I was free to roam again.
I found ways to maintain a healthy, sustainable diet, which I’ll go into more detail on in future posts.
Conclusion
In the weight loss world, calorie counting gets mixed reviews.
Some people swear by it. Others are dead against it, and treat it as blasphemy if you dare to suggest that it can be an effective way to lose weight.
I fall somewhere in between these two camps. I am a strong believer in finding an approach that fits the individual, rather than trying to shoehorn a “one size fits all” approach onto everyone.
Calorie counting is no different. Can it give you good results? Absolutely. Does that mean everyone should do it? Not at all.
It is not for everyone and will not work for everyone. However, it will work excellently for some people and I don’t think it should be totally dismissed as a weight loss approach.
If you are a diligent person, willing to put in the effort required to make calorie counting work, then it could be a good approach for you in the short term.
In the long term, I always recommend a more sustainable approach and will be diving into this topic in future posts. Have you tried calorie counting? Did you get good results? What were the pros and cons for you?