I’ve made a big song and dance in the past about how important food trackers are when it comes to losing body fat. We all know by now that in order to lose weight, we need more calories going out than coming in. We also know (although this is still very often ignored by personal trainers and the entire fitness industry…) that it is very difficult – almost impossible some would say – to manipulate the calories we burn with exercise. That means that we need to forget about “burning it off in the gym” and face the harder truth, that when it comes to losing weight, cutting calories is king.
But do we actually need to calorie COUNT in order to reduce our calories to a point where we lose weight? The simple answer is no…butI’m not about to give you some miracle, quick fix diet pill or method for losing weight which breaks the laws of physics and energy.
Calories are simply an estimate of energy in our food.
We know that. But read it again – ESTIMATE of the energy IN our food. So they are NOT:
– An accurate measure of energy for each individual portion
– A measure of how much energy we gain from a food
When we talk about calories, we’re simply talking about energy contained in a food. But how much of that is actually absorbed?
Let’s compare two different snacks – a handful of almonds and a packet of crisps.
The almonds are an unprocessed food. They contain various macronutrients; some carbohydrate, some protein, some fat and some fibre. The crisps contain mainly carbohydrate, but they’ve been processed in a way that removes most of the fibre that was in the potato. They’ll also contain fat and a minimal amount of protein. The almonds take a lot of chewing. They’re crunchy and hard. They have a fibrous skin. As they pass through the digestive tract, it’s quite hard for the body to access the calories contained in the nuts, simply by virtue of the fact that they haven’t been processed outside of the body – essentially the body has to do all that processing itself. The crisps on the other hand are pretty readily digestible. They’re crunchy but they don’t take much chewing, they quickly gum down to a paste and as they pass through your body, the body doesn’t have to do much to them to access the calories contained.
So here you can see that while you could weigh out the same amount of calories in crisps and almonds, it also makes sense that you’re likely to actually ABSORB more calories from the crisps than the almonds because there’s so much more “stuff” to get through in the almonds. In terms of net calorie gains, the crisps don’t make your body work very hard to access energy within them, whereas the almonds give your guts a bit of a workout to get the reward, so again, they’re going to expend a few more calories actually allowing you to digest them than the crisps as well. When it comes to processed foods, a lot of the processes we use to make foods palatable, can also affect digestion and absorption, meaning you’re far more likely to absorb ALL the calories in a squidgy cake bar than you are in a fruit salad, simply because in the former, you’ve stripped out a lot of “stuff” – the fibre is all gone!
So with this in mind, although a “calorie is always a calorie”, how you interact with that calorie can be quite different depending on how it’s “packaged”.
So if calories aren’t telling me how much energy I’m actually consuming, why the heck does anyone use them?!
Well we still need to TRY and guesstimate how much energy is going in right?? Calories are simply a tool to HELP us with that. And actually, if you’re tracking accurately, they tend to work pretty well. It’s not always the case and if your diet is 100% ultra-processed food then I recommend you reconsider your life choices immediately and also bear in mind you’re likely going to be accessing a lot more calories (and let’s not even get stuck into the minefield of what else a diet like that would do to your body and your eating-related hormones…), but if you’re making a good effort to track the energy you’re consuming and you’ve also a good idea of how much energy you’re likely to utilise in a day, then over the long term, you will find you lose weight.
At the end of the day, if fat loss is all about energy deficit, then we need some way of at least attempting to measure how much energy we’re consuming. We know that simply sticking our heads in the sand and saying “I’m only going to eat healthy foods” simply doesn’t work, because that does nothing for portion control.
Of course, if calorie counting really isn’t your thing, then there are plenty of other methods out there; the split plate method and the zone diet are just a couple I’ve come across that I can get on board with, whereby meals and snacks are put together based on proportions. While it’s even less accurate than calorie tracking, methods like the Zone diet can help with calorie control simply by encouraging you to eat loads more good stuff (thereby increasing your intake of healthy nutrients, potentially stabilising hunger hormones and generally making you a better human being) which not only makes you healthier but could help control the number of calories you actually absorb. A lot of my clients find that once they are acquainted with what a calorie actually looks and feels like after a few weeks or months of using a food tracker, using rough measures like the split plates method can help them to control their energy intake, keep a day to day good healthy diet but more importantly, enjoy their food!
So where do calories fit into my health plan?
Eat real food, mostly plants, not too much.
Michael Pollan
I’ve yet to find anyone who’s put it more eloquently and simply than that. Essentially, when it comes to longevity, health, happiness, anything related to maintaining health, you need to go back to basics with your food. The above eight words ring true whether you’re interested in fat loss or not. Even if body weight is no issue at all for you and it’s just your health you’re focusing on, these eight words apply to EVERYONE ON THE PLANET. Calories are simply a way to help us follow the last bit, the portion control element. They’re not the be all and end all, but if you ARE trying to lose weight, then you do need to heed energy requirements and intakes more than someone who isn’t. But don’t think that means you need to become obsessive over scanning everything into MyFitnessPal and that you can’t go out and enjoy a meal at a restaurant without paying attention to the calorie markers on the menu. There are other methods and also, once you get a handle on what a calorie actually looks like, you might also start to naturally regulate your portions. Intuitive eating is what leads us to long term health – and weight management. We can use science and calorie information to help us get to grips with this, but we need to understand its limitations and more importantly, we need to make sure we aren’t living our whole lives at the mercy of a silly app on our phones. We need to enjoy food, we need to acknowledge what an important role it plays and we need to think about the bigger picture.
So yes, energy intake is important. Awareness is important. But your happiness is fundamental. Find what works for you.
If you want to hear more about my thoughts on calorie counting, then check out episode #6 of the Do Better podcast.
If you’re struggling with getting to grips with your diet and you want some advice on your nutrition to help you get your energy back and start to recognise yourself again, why not book in for your free introductory call with me?