The six mistakes calorie counters make
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Calorie counting: The practice of keeping track of the number of calories in the food one eats so that one won’t eat too much.
For those of you unsure of what I’m talking about, here is a quick lesson: Food contains energy. Through the process of digestion, absorption and metabolism, the body unlocks and uses this energy to move, grow, repair, think, live! We measure the energy content of food with two units: calories (American way) and kilojoules (Australian way). 1 calorie = 4.2 kilojoules.
Tracking your energy intake via an app, paper diary or points system is a common way for people to lose weight. And for good reason. Keeping track of your energy intake and ensuring that you create a significant and consistent energy deficit is the most important thing when it comes to getting weight loss results.
It’s important that you understand the concept of energy deficit before you continuing reading this article. An energy deficit is this: If your body is burning more energy than it’s being fed, on a consistent basis, then you will lose weight.
This is simple in theory but challenging in practice.
After spending more than 12 years helping people lose weight there are six key mistakes that I see calorie counters make and it stifles their results and leaves them frustrated and stressed. Here’s what they are:
They guess their food portions
You might be eating the right amount of energy on paper (or in the app) but if you’re guessing your food portions then it’s likely that you’re creating a false deficit and kidding yourself! A false deficit is where the diary tells you you’re in an energy deficit, but in reality, you’re not. Frustrating stuff!
I once had a client who consistently had brownie logged into their calorie counting app. They had logged the brownie portion as 20g. I can tell you right now that no matter how strict they were trying to be that they did not eat 20g of brownie. That is not very much brownie! It was likely closer to 80g of brownie (two bite-sized pieces) or more and the calorie difference between these two portions is huge: 280 calories!
20g brownie = 95 cals; 80g brownie = 378 cals
The deficit required to achieve 1/2 kilo of weight loss per week is approximately 500 calories per day. One poor guestimation of brownie and that deficit is nearly gone! Imagine if you made this mistakes with 2-3 foods every day?
If you don’t know how much you’re eating then your calorie counting is only ever guesswork. You’ve got to weigh and measure your food to accurately track your energy intake. There is no other way around it.
They don’t track food that’s eaten mindlessly
It’s easy to track foods that you planned and/or made a conscious effort to eat. What about the fun-sized Mars bar you grabbed as you walked past your colleague’s desk? Or the kid’s leftover dinner you ate as you cleaned up the kitchen? Mindless eating happens to all of us and the calorie counting on paper is only going to help you if it’s an exact record of the energy that went into your mouth.
To help combat this my team at The Healthy Eating Hub spend a large amount of time with our clients helping them think about their food choices and get good awareness over their day to day habits, especially the ones that happen when life is busy and they’re not paying attention.
They stop tracking when they are eating ‘bad’
Due to the fact that the past 40 years of diet culture has labelled foods as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ we feel strong emotions of guilt, shame and disgust when we eat certain things.
Combined with our own self- judgment, it’s also common to cop food judgement from others; for not only what we eat but how our bodies look as well. We then resort to denial in an attempt to deal with the fact that certain behaviours aren’t making us feel good. And thus the following happens:
- Track food in the app/dairy when everything is going well and you’re making the food decisions that you deem as ‘good’.
- Have a stressful day, make food decisions that you deem as ‘bad’, stop tracking.
- Start again on Monday.
The problem is now you only have a record of when you ate according to your goals and not when you didn’t. As opposed to a reflection of your usual eating habits. You’re only aware of one aspect of your eating and blissfully unaware of the other. Upon reflection of this diary you can look at it and think: “I hardly eat anything, why am I not losing weight?” When in reality the reason you’re not losing weight is because you’re not being consistent.
You can’t change what you’re not aware of and the first thing I encourage all The Healthy Eating Hub’s new members to do when they join our program is to record their habits, even when things aren’t going to plan. I want them to look at their food dairy with curiosity, not judgement. Because it’s not until they are aware of their habits, all of them, that they can actually start making a permanent change.
They get freaked out by the energy content of perfectly healthy foods
“Woah! Bread has 180 calories per two slices. I’m going to stop eating that!” Or “Gee! 400 calories in one avocado, better cut that out!”
All foods contain energy, in varying amounts. Some foods are more energy dense than others. A smarter way of calorie counting is looking at your diet as a whole and ensuring that your total calorie intake (whatever that may be) is coming from mostly whole foods, a range of different foods groups and is being eaten in a way that’s sustainable over the long term.
I’ve created plenty of successful weight loss meal plans that contain both bread and avocado, along with lots of other energy-containing healthy foods!
They are too restrictive and don’t aim for the energy intake goal that’s right for them
Care to follow a 1200 calorie diet anyone? If you’ve done it before, you’ll know it’s not fun. 1200 calories is not a lot of food. It may be an appropriate amount of energy to achieve weight loss for some individuals, but for many people, it’s too restrictive, especially if you’re active, have a large muscle mass or are male.
When you’re too restrictive, you’re more likely to be inconsistent. High restriction leads to hunger, lethargy, crankiness and it just sucks the fun all round. It results in people flipping to the opposite extreme of eating everything they can get your hands on, which of course, isn’t good for weight loss. My approach is to feed my clients more food, so that they can be more consistent and learn to lose weight in the same way they intend on maintaining it.
They forget about diet quality and fail to nail the basics of good nutrition: whole foods
Effective, long term weight loss is much more than calorie counting. In fact, calorie counting is pointless if you’re not actually taking steps to increase your overall diet quality. And by diet quality I mean a regular (daily) intake of nutrient dense, whole foods. Whole foods are more filling, keep you feeling fuller for longer, help stabilise your blood sugar, improve your gut health and ensure you’re getting plenty of vitamins and minerals.
Yes, you must create an energy deficit and I always chat to the members at The Healthy Eating Hub about the importance of knowing how much they’re eating, however, I strongly believe that the first foundation of long term healthy eating is creating habits that help you put whole foods on your plate each and every day.
If you’re currently calorie counting and feeling frustrated with your lack of results, check in with my team at The Healthy Eating Hub.
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