Hello everyone!
I hope you had an awesome Christmas! My post today is about calorie counting! Any of you that have lost, or are attempting to lose weight, have probably come across the online discussion around calorie counting; to count or not to count?
On one side of the fence you have the non-counters; those folks that argue that there are different types of calories, the good ones and the bad ones. That means that if all you’re doing is counting calories; you could eat 1500 calories worth of chocolate, which would get you to your daily calorie count, but obviously, it wouldn’t be good for you.
The other argument against calorie counting is that apps like MyFitnessPal (the one I use), help you log your food and your exercise, but it isn’t always accurate. For example, to accurately log your calorie count, you have to know exactly how many grams you’re eating etc. Most people don’t accurately measure their food. The other problem is when you’re logging your exercise; how do you really know that you’ve burnt 500 calories on the stationary bike? You don’t; so do you still eat 500 calories?
The main argument in favour, is that calorie counting makes it very easy to track what you’re eating. Most people don’t understand food; i know I don’t. I couldn’t tell you what the energy values of 100g of chicken are; I couldn’t tell you what the benefits of eating chicken vs steak are. But what I can tell you is that, if I have 500 calories left for the day, and my chicken sandwich is 450 calories… i’m doing OK.
The other argument in favour of calorie counting is not actually to do with calorie counting; it’s food journalling. Writing down what you eat, makes you accountable to yourself [tweet]. If you know that you have to write down your food, you’re probably a lot less likely to sneak a muffin than if you not writing it down (as long as you’re honest with yourself).
I don’t measure my food nor do I 100% trust the number on the machines at the gym. But if I write down what exercise I’ve done, and the food i’ve eaten, even if the calories are out by up to 10%, the pure act of writing down what I eat makes me less likely to eat unhealthy. And that is why i’m going back to “calorie counting” – i’m not fussed about weighing chicken breast or measuring the length of a steak; the act of writing down what I eat makes me a lot less likely to sneak a muffin or a packet of crisps.
And that is what it comes down to. I have been working really hard on my exercise but my weight hasn’t shifted. Why? Because I can eat a 500 calorie muffin without even thinking about it. It’s like I go in to robot mode sometimes; I can continually put my hand in to a bag of chips more out of habit than necessity. And that’s why, whether or not I weigh my portions to the nearest milligram; having to think about what I eat will make me more likely to eat well [tweet].
Do you folks have any weight loss tips? Anything that you have found helps you? Let me know.
Mike.
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