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The
Truth About Counting Calories And Weight Loss
By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Do
calories matter or do you simply need to eat certain foods and that
will guarantee you’ll lose weight? Should you count calories or
can you just count “portions?” Is it necessary to keep a food
diary? Is it unrealistic to count calories for the rest of your life
or is that just part of the price you pay for a better body? You’re
about to learn the answers to these questions and discover a simple
solution for keeping track of your food intake without having to crunch
numbers every day or become a fanatic about it.
In
many popular diet books, “Calories don’t count” is a
frequently repeated theme. Other popular programs, such as Bill Phillip's
"Body For Life," stress the importance of energy intake versus
energy output, but recommend that you count “portions” rather
than calories…
Phillips
wrote,
"There
aren't many people who can keep track of their calorie intake for an
extended period of time. As an alternative, I recommend counting 'portions.'
A portion of food is roughly equal to the size of your clenched fist
or the palm of your hand. Each portion of protein or carbohydrate typically
contains between 100 and 150 calories. For example, one chicken breast
is approximately one portion of protein, and one medium-sized baked
potato is approximately one portion of carbohydrate."
Phillips
makes a good point that trying to count every single calorie - in the
literal sense - can drive you crazy and is probably not realistic as
a lifestyle for the long term. It's one thing to count portions instead
of calories – that is at least acknowledging the importance of
portion control. However, it's another altogether to deny that calories
matter.
Calories
do count! Any diet program that tells you, "calories don't count"
or you can "eat all you want and still lose weight" is a diet
you should avoid because you are being lied to. The truth is, that line
is a bunch of baloney designed to make a diet sound easier to follow.
Anything
that sounds like work – such as counting calories, eating less
or exercising, tends to scare away potential customers! The law of calorie
balance is an unbreakable law of physics: Energy in versus energy out
dictates whether you will gain, lose or maintain your weight. Period.
I believe
that it's very important to develop an understanding of and a respect
for portion control and the law of calorie balance. I also believe it's
an important part of nutrition education to learn how many calories
are in the foods you eat on a regular basis – including (and perhaps,
especially) how many calories are in the foods you eat when you dine
at restaurants.
The
law of calorie balance says:
To
maintain your weight, you must consume the same number of calories you
burn. To gain weight, you must consume more calories than you burn.
To lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn.
If
you only count portions or if you haven't the slightest idea how many
calories you're eating, it's a lot more likely that you'll eat more
than you realize. (Or you might take in fewer calories than you should,
which triggers your body’s "starvation mode" and causes
your metabolism to shut down).
So
how do you balance practicality and realistic expectations with a nutrition
program that gets results? Here's a solution that’s a happy medium
between strict calorie counting and just guessing:
Create
a menu using an EXCEL spreadsheet or your favorite nutrition software.
Crunch all the numbers including calories, protein, carbs and fats.
Once you have your daily menu, print it, stick it on your refrigerator
(and/or in your daily planner) and you now have an eating "goal"
for the day, including a caloric target.
Rather
than writing down every calorie one by one from every morsel of food
you eat for the rest of your life, create a menu plan you can use as
a daily goal and guideline. If you’re really ambitious, keeping
a nutrition journal at least one time in your life for at least 4-12
weeks is a great idea and an incredible learning experience, but all
you really need to get started on the road to a better body is one good
menu on paper. If you get bored eating the same thing every day, you
can create multiple menus, or just exchange foods using your primary
menu as a template.
Using
this meal planning method, you really only need to “count calories”
once when you create your menus, not every day, ad infinitum. After
you've got a knack for calories from this initial discipline of menu
planning, then you can estimate portions in the future and get a pretty
good (and more educated) ballpark figure.
So
what’s the bottom line? Is it really necessary to count every calorie
to lose weight? No. But it IS necessary to eat fewer calories then you
burn. Whether you count calories and eat less than you burn, or you
don’t count calories and eat less than you burn, the end result
is the same – you lose weight. Which would you rather do: Take
a wild guess, or increase your chance for success with some simple menu
planning? I think the right choice is obvious.
For
more information on calories (including how calculate precisely how
many you should eat based on your age, activity and personal goals,
and for even more practical, proven fat loss techniques to help you
lose body fat safely, healthfully and permanently, check out my e-book,
Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle
About
the Author:
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Tom Venuto
is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal
trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist
(CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn
the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written hundreds of
articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN,
Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development,
Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds
of websites worldwide. For information on Tom's Fat Loss program,
click
here.
Click
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Articles By Tom Venuto
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