In order to thoroughly enjoy life and go somewhere to make money (aka a job), you had to learn how to drive a car.
You use your driving skills to get you to work in the morning, to get you to your parent’s house to celebrate the holidays, to go to a nice restaurant with your significant other.
It takes time to learn how to drive a car, and there are tons of nuances, but it’s extremely beneficial when you get it down.
One of the most important skills you can learn (right up there with driving a car) is tracking your calories and being able to hit a realistic calorie goal on a regular basis.
However, driving your car is something that is widely accepted. Counting calories...not nearly as accepted by the general public. And it’s a damn shame.
Counting and being aware of calories is an essential skill that can make your life substantially easier and better. A life where you can get (and stay) in shape while still enjoying life (Examples: Going out & having tasty foods or Having a few drinks with friends).
Calorie counting is uber beneficial. But it gets negative push back for a multitude of reasons.
It it’s simplest form - counting your calories is tracking how much energy you’re putting in your body. There’s an average amount of energy you need to do daily activities and live life. When you take in too much energy, and don’t use it all, it gets stored for future energy needs. However, this excess energy normally gets stored as extra body fat.
Having too much unused energy put into your body on a regular basis, for an extended period of time, can lead to you being overweight, not liking how you look or feel, and potentially lead to other health complications.
Being aware of the energy (calories) you’re putting in your body is extremely beneficial. And that, my friend, is counting calories. You have complete control over your body when you’re aware and learn about nutrition, particularly the impact of calories.
WIth that said, in this article we’re going to go over four main topics, as it relates to calorie counting:
Reasons Why Some Humans Think You Should NOT Count Calories (And Give Responses To Those Reasons)
Disclaimers of Counting Calories
Benefits of Counting Calories
Where To Start
Hopefully by the end of the article you’ll have a better understanding of why calorie counting is important, how to approach it, and what you should do to start making progress.
Response To Popular Reasons You “Shouldn’t” Count Calories
Obviously, I know there are humans who strongly believe you should not count calories. However, most of these reasons can be resolved by talking through them. Let’s do that.
1. “Calorie Counting Doesn’t Work”
First, if calorie counting didn’t work, then no dieting strategy would work.
To lose body weight, you need to be taking in less calories than your body needs to stay at it’s current weight.
Any diet, that has ever worked for anyone on the planet, was successful because they made changes to take in less calories.
Cutting back on sugary foods, cutting back on carbs, eating less meals.
Those are all ways to cut back on calories.
Next, there are actually three ways calorie counting doesn’t work.
You have unrealistic expectations.
You’re underestimating how many calories you’re taking in.
You’re not making adjustments.
Drop the idea that you’re going to lose 15-20 pounds in a month. Losing 1-2 pounds per week is fantastic. Go into any fat loss goal with patience, realizing the ideal situation is losing 4-8 pounds in a month instead of 15-20 pounds. You’ll stick with it longer & not be as hard on yourself.
If you’re really on your game and not making progress (not losing body fat or weight for a 2-3 weeks stretch), you’re taking in too many calories. Hard fact. Some people don’t like to hear that. But if you’re not making progress, it’s because you’re taking in too many calories. Again, you have the power to take in less calories each day. You’re in control.
2. It Gives You A Bad Relationship With Food.
If you lose a ton of weight really fast, regardless of the diet, you’re probably being way more restrictive than you need to be and are likely going to have a somewhat bad relationship with food.
If you restrict foods that you enjoy (like ice cream, wine, or pizza) and can never eat them with the new diet kick you’re on, you’re likely going to over indulge on them when given the chance.
There are plenty of people that are overweight from eating an excess of junk food. And they’re unhappy because they’re overweight. Then they do this uber strict diet, and never have any of the foods they like and are unhappy. They have that food, gain the weight back, and are unhappy again.
Because of that, I can see a bad relationship with food happening.
Something important to remember:
The food didn’t treat you wrong. You got played by a diet and/or treated yourself wrong while doing it.
Food doesn’t take action against you to spoil your relationship with it. You’re the one taking action.
Being educated on food, and how it can positively impact how you look and feel, normally does more good than harm.
3. It Takes Up Too Much Time
I don’t intimately know you and your life.
But I would be willing to bet a large pizza and White Claws that you have 1-2 minutes every meal to figure out how many calories it has and enter it into an app on your phone.
You lost 5.3 minutes of Netflix time to look and feel better. I’d say that’s an okay trade-off.
It takes time to build a new skill and implement it. Something that is slightly challenging normally means there is some good on the other side of it. Calorie counting included.
4. You Should Focus On The Quality Of Foods, Not The Calories
This is one of my disclaimers below.
Yes, obviously the quality of your foods and calories matter. Sure, if your diet consists of only twinkies & diet soda but your calories are on point you would lose weight. But will, without question, feel like a giant turd and likely not be able to stick with that for the long term.
Just because you’re counting calories does NOT mean the notion you should eat nutrient dense, filling, ‘healthier’ foods is thrown out the window. They work hand in hand.
5. Your Body Intuitively Tells You How When You’re Hungry or Full.
Imagine you just moved to a new place and someone invites you to dinner on the opposite end of the city from where you live.
And you have to get to dinner without using your GPS or looking up directions.
Your friend tells you some things to look for as you’re driving that will signal you’re close. But outside of that, you’re supposed to figure it out. Good luck.
If you did have your GPS for at least a handful of times to give you some direction and idea of how to navigate, you could probably do it on your own eventually, right?
That’s kinda sorta what this idea of eating intuitively is like when someone first wants to get serious about their fitness goals and focus in on nutrition.
I get it, intuitive eating is a popular trend with nutrition.
However, it’s an extremely advanced nutrition strategy that many beginners are trying to implement and use to make progress.
Without the knowledge of how the body works to lose/gain weight, what foods fill you up more/less for the calories, how to manage portion sizes, and many other areas you learn from counting calories and educating yourself….
It’s extremely challenging to make progress by relying on your body to tell you when and what to eat.
Eventually, yes. Eating more intuitively is ideal. And we talk about this in the disclaimers as well. The goal isn’t to track calories forever. It’s to become educated and build habits so eventually you can maintain your progress and be an overall healthy individual for the long term.
6. You ‘Failed’ Or Were ‘Bad’ If You Went Over Your Calorie Goal
One day of going over your calorie goal doesn’t mean you suck. Or you completed screwed up your fitness goals.
You simply had more food than you had planned. All you can control is what you do next. Use that as a lesson and get better the next day.
Imagine you bring a certain amount of money to spend on vacation. And you end up spending all of it but have a few other fun things planned where you need more money. So you pull out your credit card to pay for those activities.
Big whoop. You went slightly over the money you allotted yourself.
You wouldn’t permanently stop going on vacation because you couldn’t perfectly stay within your goal budget.
Sure, if you go over that budget all the time, you’re likely going to be broke and not in the best place. But one time, here and there, spending more than you thought you would - not the end of the world.
You don’t suck if you go over in calories for the day. Just improve the next day.
Disclaimers of Counting Calories:
Before we dig into the undeniable reasons for counting calories, I want to make three things very clear.
The Quality Of The Calories You’re Taking In Absolutely Matter.
To make progress & sustain it, you need to eat plenty of filling, nutrient dense foods that will make you feel good. Normally the foods that are filling and nutrient dense are also lower in calories. I talk about the flexibility counting calories provides but in order to lose body fat & keep it off, eating ‘healthier foods’ on a regular basis is something you should strive for.
2. You Don’t Have To Count Calories Forever, If You Don’t Want To.
The goal with counting calories is to educate yourself. Educate yourself on:
What foods are higher or lower calorie.
Which foods, for the calories you’re consuming, make you feel more or less full.
Which drinks you should opt for to stay within your calorie goal.
How to balance out a day of eating and still hit your calorie goals (so that you can make progress) even when you went to Denny’s & got a stack of pancakes.
Knowing how to structure your meals earlier in the day to stay on track even while going out & drinking at night.
Counting calories educates you and helps you build habits. After you have built those habits, and made it a part of what you do, you don’t have to continue being stupidly diligent with counting your calories. But if you’re never aware of how the food or drinks are impacting how you look and feel, how can you know what you should and shouldn’t be doing?
3. You Have To Be Disciplined & Make Some Sacrifices
In order to get positive results with anything in life, you have to be disciplined and make some sacrifices. If you wanted to get a dream job out of college, you would sacrifice going out multiple times per week in order to study for classes, build your experience, and build connections needed.
The same thing applies with nutrition and losing body fat. Sacrifices have to be made. You can’t make progress without cutting back on certain foods or drinks.
Most goals, where sacrifices must be made to accomplish them, are accomplished by intangible measures. You don’t know how many connections you have to build in order to have a connection that helps you get your dream job. It could be 15, 25, 50 people that you connect with, with the hopes of one of them being the person that can help you tremendously.
However, with nutrition and losing body fat, there are tangible numbers to aim for to know whether you are going to accomplish your goals or not. If you’re not losing body fat and making progress, you simply need to take in less calories. It makes it easier on you because it’s simple. You know exactly why progress is or isn’t being made.
Why Counting Calories Is Beneficial:
After talking through the typical reasons people don’t like counting calories and the disclaimers, I already included a good amount of the benefits of counting calories. However, I’m thinking a nice, crisp, organized listing of the benefits would be nice to have.
You become more educated about what you’re drinking/eating and how it impacts your body. You understand portion sizes and what foods do a good job of keeping you more full throughout the day.
Being aware of calories helps to make better nutrition decisions in the moment and long term. You begin to cut out foods and drinks that you don’t thoroughly enjoy.
You know whether you’re going to make progress (or not) based on the calories you’re taking in and can make adjustments to continue making more progress.
You learn how to, and can, fit ‘fun meals’ to your day of calories while still making progress. Although ‘healthier’ food is extremely important. You don’t have to permanently neglect foods you enjoy.
Where To Start
The best thing you can do is become more aware. Eat/drink how you normally do and track your calories for an entire week.
Track everything (every snack, dressing, drink). See how many calories you’re taking in. See which foods are higher/lower calorie. See how those foods make you feel for the amount of calories you’re taking in.
After you’re aware, you can make adjustments based on your goals.
If you want to lose weight, a good starting point is to multiply you body weight by 11 and use that as your initial calorie goal.
Example: If you’re 200lbs, multiply it by 11 and you get 2,200 calories.
It might be a bit less or more calories than you need but it’s a good place to start.
If you want to gain muscle and are lifting regularly, multiply your body weight by 15.
Then, regardless of your goal, make adjustments based on your progress. If you’re taking in a certain amount of calories but not seeing progress for 2-3 weeks either take in 150-200 less/more (depending on your goals) per day.
Lastly, this stuff takes time. Have patience. If it takes 3, 6, 12, 24 months to make progress and substantial changes to your life & habits, that’s okay. It’s a long life. Take a (relatively) short period of time to learn & develop quality habits. It will be worth it.
If you want someone to help you accomplish your fitness goals, with a customized plan of attack (that includes calories & adjustments to make along the way), send me an email & let’s talk. My email is: Patrick@JourneyToGains.com .