Why you should never count calories
Tamara Willner, a senior nutritionist with NHS-backed healthy eating plan Second Nature, explains why calorie counting just does not work as a long-term weight-loss solution. She is referring to using calorie-counting as the age old 'eat less and move more' method of losing weight. It is a myth!
Not all calories are equal, for example, 100 calories of avocado vs 100 calories of biscuits, and the number of calories we absorb from foods varies greatly between individuals - it's rarely the number we see on the packets.
Most of us who have tried dieting before having practiced calorie-counting at some point in time. We might not even realize we are calorie counting if we are taking part in a traditional weight-loss program.
Often programs provide lists of foods that relate to 'points' or colors that attach moral value (e.g., 'red' foods are bad) but these are usually all just based on calorie content.
Interestingly, according to the Second Nature survey of 1,000 people who currently calorie count or have calorie counted in the past, conducted by One Poll, 41 per cent think this language encourages a negative relationship with food.
If calorie-counting worked in the long term, we would only need to try it once or twice and then we would see our results and be able to sustain it.
A strict diet that focuses on calorie counting might work for some, but for the majority, it is a short-term solution and will fail at some point, leaving us where we started.
Here are three reasons to STOP counting calories
1) It promotes low-calorie foods rather than healthy foods
31 per cent of people surveyed say they struggle to eat healthy foods if they are high in calories. This means that we have moved away from thinking ‘what would nourish my body’ to ‘what’s the lowest-calorie option.’ If we compare a sugary, ultra-processed (but low-calorie) cereal bar to a Ryvita cracker with avocado and cheese on top, the latter has more calories, but it also will keep us fuller for longer and provide our bodies with a variety of nutrients.
2) It is hard to keep up because we feel hungry
One-third of those surveyed would go to bed feeling hungry up to four times per week. When we are scrimping on meals to ‘save up’ calories for things we enjoy, like chocolate, we are not providing our bodies with enough fuel, so it is no wonder 46 per cent of us feel hungry while calorie-counting.
3) It can negatively impact our mental health and social lives
Any lifestyle changes should be things we can incorporate into our lives over time. Skipping social events, as 48 per cent admitted to doing while calorie-counting, is not sustainable behavior. This will only further fuel poor mental health and lead to us giving up. This is usually because calorie-counting results in a vicious cycle. We want to lose weight, so we cut our calories, which leads to some short-term results, but then we cannot keep up this behavior because we feel hungry and grumpy, so we stop it, resulting in us regaining the weight and then some.
Once we are in this cycle of yo-yo dieting it can be extremely hard to break, and it can sometimes have a negative impact on our metabolism in the long term, leading to us storing fat more easily.
Taken from this article.
