Not counting calories suddenly seems to be the trend all the cool kids are following.
“Nah man, you don’t need to count calories, just stop eating wheat/sugar/gluten/fruit/dairy/meat* and you’ll lose fat.”
If only it were that simple.
(* – you can insert whatever fad is going round at the moment here!)
Any fat loss diet, regardless of what it promotes, is designed to create a calorie deficit. It doesn’t matter if it’s low-carb, low-fat, Paleo – whatever – the reason why these diets work is because by placing restrictions on foods or food groups, they automatically push you into a calorie deficit.
Unfortunately though, it’s those buzzwords, and the promotion of some sort of nutritional “baddy” that makes these diets sell.
With that in mind, here are five reasons you need to count calories…….
You’ve heard about how 3,500 calories equals 1 pound, right?
Well, that’s more or less true. Sure, there is a little more to it than that, but at the end of the day, weight loss or weight gain comes down to calorie balance.
Eat a surplus of 3,500 calories and you’ll gain one pound, burn off 3,500 more than you consume, and you’ll lose a pound.
Your body runs off calories, and though there is a small difference in the thermogenic effect of different nutrients (the main ones being protein and fibre, which take a little more energy to break down, so burn off more calories than fat and simple carbohydrates in the process) ultimately your body views a calorie as a calorie.
Yep, that’s right.
50g of carbs from a banana is the same as 50g of carbs from a sweet potato, or a bowl of Shreddies, or some sorbet. In the same vein that if you get 20g of protein from a chicken breast, or 20g of protein from a shake, you’re still getting 20g of protein.
Now, the other components in those foods (again, mainly fibre) may affect digestion and calorie burn a little, but the carbs, protein, fat (and ultimately – calories) are your body’s source of energy. This is what it will use to burn for energy, or store them, either as fat or muscle.
So if your body’s counting those calories, it makes sense for you to.
I absolutely LOVE this topic. The more I learn about the ins and outs of nutrition, and the more people I work with, the more I realise one simple thing –
Most people don’t have a clue how much they’re eating.
I’ve never had an initial consultation with someone, who, when asked what their diet’s like, hasn’t replied “it’s generally pretty healthy.”
That’s been whether I’ve been talking with someone who’s a shredded 8% body fat, your typical middle-aged office worker with a slight paunch, or someone who’s come to me because they need to lose 200 pounds.
On the face of it, we all think we eat pretty well. We remember the “healthy” meals we’ve had, and subconsciously banish the bad ones from our mind.
Those weekend food binges and drinking sessions get put down as “one-offs” while many don’t even think about the sugar they put in their tea and coffee, the bag of nuts they pick at from their desk every day, or the copious amounts of dressing they use on salads.
Perform a food recall analysis with someone though, and you start to see a little more.
Here’s a test – sit down with someone and ask them what they ate yesterday. Every time they falter, or have to go back and add in extra detail, give them a tick. Now count up those ticks – there’ll be a fair few.
Now, probe a bit more, and ask more questions:
That coffee they had, was it just black coffee, or did it have sugar, milk, syrup or cream in it?
How about dinner? Their chicken and potatoes – was that grilled chicken breast and new potatoes, or battered chicken and fried potatoes? And how big was the serving size?
I’ll refer you to one of my favourite ever studies, from Lichtman et. Al –
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701
The researchers concluded that –
“The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis”
In essence, weight gain (or lack of weight loss) was not due to a perceived slow metabolism, but because people simply ate way more than they thought they did, and way more than they needed.
Want to know how badly people actually underestimated their calorie intake? Get ready, you may need to sit down for this one……
1053 calories per day in one group and 692 in another.
That means, over the course of one week, group 1 would have eaten a 7,371 calorie excess, and group 2 a 4,844 calorie excess. That’s enough for a gain of 2 pounds of fat and 1.4 pounds of fat respectively.
Scary stuff.
Weight loss plateaus are bound to happen when you’re dieting.
It’s a concept known as adaptive thermogenesis – as your body-weight drops you burn fewer calories. This is mainly due to it taking less energy to move less weight around, but can also be due in part to a down-regulation of certain hormones and processes.
So, what do you do when you hit a plateau?
If you’re counting calories, you just lower by say, 25, 50, 100, or, maybe in an extreme case – 200 – per day. Hey presto, you’ve recreated that calorie deficit, and are on track to losing more fat.
What does the non-calorie counter do?
To get some ideas for other approaches people in the industry had on this topic, I Googled “Why You need to Count Calories.”
On the first page of results, I got the following –
– “Don’t Count Calories, Results Can Be Made With Healthy Changes.”
– “Why You Don’t Need To Count Calories Ever Again”
– “Don’t Count Calories, It’ll Just Make You Fatter”
– “Counting Calories is Flawed”
– “9 Reasons Why Calorie Counting is Dumb”
– “6 Reasons to NOT Count Calories”
Six of the 10 results were giving me the exact opposite of what I was searching for.
This all relates back to those buzzwords, and trying to unite against a common enemy that I eluded to in the introduction. It’s very guru-esque to diss calorie counting, and promote other, more extreme methods, because, as we know, extremism sells.
Here’s how I see it though –
The guys and girls who follow and promote fads, and extremist or restrictive diets are the kids at school who always jump on the latest bandwagon.
They’re the jocks – they like to be seen hanging round in big groups. They go drinking at the weekends, get drunk, cause trouble and try to crap on everyone else.
Calorie counters are like the nerds. They sit in the corner, trying to be ignored by everyone. They take a sensible, moderate and considered approach to everything and just try to keep their heads down.
We all know which group seems more appealing. But…….
Fast forward five years. Where are those jocks now? They’re working dead end jobs, still trying desperately to follow the fads and seem trendy, left with nothing but a few blurry memories of how “cool” they were a few years back.
And the nerds?
They’re running their own companies. They’re the CEOs and the corporate big shots. That diligent, non-extremist approach and hard work got them a long way. By following logic, common sense and putting in the hours, they’ve got where they want to be, and are pretty damn successful.
You’re following a clean eating plan, and want a burger and a beer, what do you do?
Option 1: You sit there, while all your friends demolish their burgers and sip their cold ones, taking the piss out of you, while you gingerly pick away at your piece of fish and asparagus.
Option 2: You have that beer and burger, “break” your diet, and get so uptight about falling off the wagon, and not eating “clean” that you turn that one meal into a massive binge, swearing that you’ll never cheat again…….. yeah right.
But, if you’re a calorie counter, you don’t think twice.
You have that burger (maybe skipping the fries if you’re dieting) and savour your beer, while having fun with your friends, knowing that you’re still on track with your progress, and haven’t strayed an inch from your diet.
Be a calorie counter. At the moment you might not seem as cool as the Paleo guys, low-carbers and the Atkins addicts, but give it a few years, and where will they be?
They’ll be on to the next fad, wondering why they’re still fat and weak, while you’re going against the grain, counting calories, feeling great, looking strong and getting shredded.
Personally, I went from fat Paleo guy, to ripped flexible dieter eating ice cream and sandwiches on a daily basis, purely by implementing calorie counting.
Want to learn how?
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I asked my Dr. how I could lose weight. He told me to eat 1500 calories/day. I ate 1200 calories/day for 3 months and lost 45 pounds. It’s a month later and I enjoyed some mighty fine dinners and desserts but I know that once I go back to 1200-1500 calories per day I’ll lose weight again.
I wonder why people watch and listen to Dr. Oz and those dopey commercials about weight loss programs (b/c they’re not free). They don’t have a Dr. like mine or had anyone mention “calorie counting” as a way to lose weight. I’m sure glad I asked him and listened to him. It took lots of discipline but wow; what a success story.
The article is well written, looks very nice and professional but I’m afraid I will have to aggree with mr Mazur. You need to educate yourself a litle more about biochemistry before you give out advice like this. One thing is to know what works, but to explain why it works you need deeper knowledge. If you knew a litle about the hormones insuline and leptin and what affects them, insulin sensitivity, leptin resistance, etc, you would quickly get into problems defending your statements. A good place to start learning is dietdoctor.com. Also the book Body By Science is really good. Cheers!
You sir, are just another trainer who has seen the tip of the “nutritional Iceberg” and thinks arrogantly that he has seen the WHOLE iceberg. You have a HUGE lack of biological knowledge that makes you sound like someone who should be reading this article, NOT someone who should be WRITING this article. To assume 100 calories of broccoli has the same effect in the human body as 100 calories of Twinkies is extremely naìve and ignorant. Please go back to school or read some books, every success story that I have as a Trainer, involves having my clients eating MORE calories yet losing tons of bodyfat, calories MIGHT control total weight, but it has little to do with BODY COMPOSITION changes, my clients gain muscle AND lose fat simultaniously while enjoying tons of food, and not all of that food is “clean food”, Why I teach is a flexible plan. Its sad that thePTDC has someone so uneducated writing articles for the public. You represent 99% of the trainer population that gives knowledgable trainers like me a bad name. This is dreadfully terrible work, im ashamed for you.
Hi Nick,
Nice name!
You’ve thrown out a few negative comments, not only on the article itself (which is fine, discussion is the way our thinking develops), but toward the author, which is a bit rude imo.
Anyway, I read through the article, and I couldn’t see where twinkies and broccoli were said to be equal.
What I did see, was the statement that sources of macro nutrients (protein, carbs) don’t matter in terms of what the body can use and store.
We know this to be true.
Whilst long term health outcomes may be better if your protein sources are lean meats/fish etc and your carb sources are veggies and fruits over processed stuff, we can’t conclusively say so, there are too many variables at hand.
So when it comes to eating for weight and fat loss, then creating a deficit has to happen. That’s all that is being said in this article.
Now, when you say your clients eat more calories but lose fat, that is fantastic! There are a few reasons that this might happen:
– increased basal metabolic rate from improved hormonal status, resulting from exercise, sleep and nutrition
– they are eating an increased VOLUME of food but not an increase in CALORIES
– you have circumvented the laws of physics
Either way, the results are what matters for you and your clients, and I congratulate you on that. Well done.
I know I am late to the party but from a thermodynamic standpoint all macronutrients aren’t created equal. Fructose breaks down differently from glucose which breaks down differently from lactose which are all forms of carbohhydrates. I do recommend you read more on the literature before making a bold statement. Calorie Counting leads to eating/ body disorders and is found to sometimes more damage than good.
First your metabolism changes. You start subtracting 500 calories daily and soon enough that will be the new normal. Your metabolism will slow down to what you are giving it. Second you restrict your calories and you cannot grow lean mass. By doing this your metabolism slows down and actually holds on to more adipose tissue (fat) Third studies found that people on calorie restricted diets have less success than those who eat as much as they want but lower their carbohydrate intake. Proteins tend to make the body feel more full (and also take more energy to break down.) Fourth calories are less important than hormonal levels. People who are stressed produce cortisol and this brings fat utilization to a fast stop. It is found to be more important to be less stressed and sleep more than anything having to do with calories.
This being said it is up to you whatever you want to do but I think it is important for everyone to read up on the research before they try something from someone who is unqualified to talk about something as serious as a diet. Losing weight and losing fat are two totally different things and you are at risk of puting yourself at danger if you get the wrong advice. What may work for you will probably will not work for someone else. Fitness and Health is case by case and should be treated so by every health professional.
If you eat all the “right foods” and lose weight your body will similarly slow it’s metabolism, right? So what’s your point? The metabolism slows down to the weight loss, because regardless of what you’re eating you can’t lose weight unless you burn more than you bring in. Studies of the longest living people in Japan and Italy, and the fat-consuming yet slim folds of France all show one common denominator: smaller portions, no snacking, more active lifestyle.
Great article! I am back to counting calories because it is the only way I have ever been able to lose weight. There is a great calorie counter app I found that adds the protien, fats, etc. but it still comes down to counting the calories.
Mike, thank God you didn’t reply to the kind of people that came right on bashing this post, which had a totally different target that what you are suggesting (flexibility and compliance bonus due to calorie counting / estimating)
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Although calorie counting is important and a valuable aid in weightloss, it can also lead to eating disorders, You can become obsessed with counting every calorie and it can be extremely damaging. A good thing to remember is’ Calories are IMPORTANT but they are NOT EVERYTHING.
The world will not end if you are 100 calories over your ‘limit’ nor will you gain 10 kg from eating ‘bad’ or ‘cheat day’ foods because it is that mentality that can lead to unhealthy relationships with food and binge eating disorders or even yo-yo dieting.