Should I Count Calories?
With so many apps available to assist with tracking our food intake and calories, it naturally seems as though calorie counting is the way to lose weight. During my nutrition counseling sessions with clients, unless they are an athlete, calorie counting is the last thing I advise on doing. While I like to use apps like MyFitnessPal with clients during our initial session to get a 7 day recall, it is not something I recommend doing beyond that.
But people continue to do it. They keep plugging away their food intake and are left feeling guilty if they go over their “recommended” calories or feel like they need to make up for it by depriving themselves or working out.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe there is value in journaling the foods you have eaten to gain a better understanding and accountability, but to track every single calorie is not worth the trouble and time.
It can be a real dangerous path tracking calories as it gets you focused on numbers, maybe even becoming obsessed over it. Calorie counting can lead to eating disorders or trigger someone with a past history of an eating disorder and bring on new restrictive eating habits.
Weight loss and general health involves so much more than simply counting calories. We need to look at lifestyle factors like stress, sleep, activity levels, and factors that may be disrupting hormones.
This is one of the reasons why my nutrition counseling focuses on the individual and setting realistic and achievable goals instead of writing up a meal plan, providing an obscure calorie range, and tracking. This is inflexible, not sustainable, and leaves most people feeling discouraged.
Here are a list of reasons why spending hours over calorie counting may not be worth it.
1) You Most Likely Do Not Know How Many Calories You Really Need
To accurately count calories for weight loss, you need to know your basal metabolic rate which is the rate at which your body uses calories while at rest. The gold standard to calculating calorie needs is through indirect calorimetry which measures oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production to assess energy expenditure. It involves the use of very expensive equipment and so it is highly unlikely that most people know their precise calorie needs. You can use apps and formulas to get an approximation, but it’s simply that - an approximation of calorie needs.
2) There Is No Way To Tell How Many Calories Your Body Absorbs
Let’s say you did figure out a way to measure your exact calories needs - how will you know how many of those calories your body actually absorbs?
From how foods are processed to how much of certain nutrients it contains will determine how much of it is absorbed. For example, sweet potatoes have more calories available for digestion the longer they are cooked. Therefore, no two cooked sweet potatoes even if they weigh the same will supply the exact same amount of calories.
One study found that participants who ate 600-800 calories of whole wheat bread and cheddar cheese expended twice as much energy as those who consumed the same quantity of white bread and “processed cheese.”1
Calories absorbed is very complex and it is not something that a calorie counting app will accurately be able to calculate due to the science and many other factors involved.
3) May Cause You To Ignore Natural Hunger Cues
If you are focusing solely on calorie counting and not on the quality of foods and how you feel while eating (bored, stressed, etc.), you may be unknowingly suppressing your bodies natural hunger and satiety cues. You may be eating because it’s when the app tells you to or because you have leftover calories for the day. On the flip side, you may not be eating because you went over your allotted amount for the day. This causes you to ignore what your body is telling you what to do instead of trusting and listening to your body which can tell you way more than an app can.
4) Calorie Counting Leads To The Wrong Belief That You Can “Work-off” The Food You Eat
Your body does not burn off food calorie-for-calorie like that. It is so sad to hear clients say they went over their calories, but the app told them they can do [insert amount of exercise] to go back in the green. This puts false rules and “allowances” on our relationship with food, again taking away from our bodies natural hunger cues and instead relying on false data.
Knowing where the calories are coming from will determine whether our bodies store them as fat. You can read more here to understand how our bodies determine calories to be stored as fat.
You may go on a crazy cycle of overeating, working out (FYI - you need to workout for a very long time to burn off the calories depending on the size meal), and then getting so hungry from working out and binging again. See my point?
Instead, if we learn to trust our bodies and eat what it needs, on the occasion we do overeat, our bodies will be able to handle those extra calories without gaining weight.
Takeaways
My advice to you is to focus on fresh, whole foods, those nutrient dense foods that give you the most bang for your buck in terms of macro and micronutrients.
Practice mindful eating techniques like getting back in touch with your bodies natural hunger and satiety cues. You can learn more about the process here.
If you eat a balanced diet most of the time your body in turn will react by finding it’s natural balance - meaning no calorie counting required.
Ready to delete the calorie counting app and trust your body? That’s where working with a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist can be helpful and I recommend finding one who can create a plan that is individualized to your lifestyle and daily habits.
You can always work with me :)
References
Barr SB, Wright JC. Postprandial energy expenditure in whole-food and processed-food meals: implications for daily energy expenditure. Food Nutr Res. 2010;54:10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5144. Published 2010 Jul 2. doi:10.3402/fnr.v54i0.5144
