Article
by Tom Venuto,
NSCA-CPT, CSCS
Counting
Calories And Weight
Loss
Do calories
matter or do you
simply need to eat certain foods and that will guarantee you’ll lose
weight?
Should you count calories or can you just count “portions?” Is it
necessary
to keep a food diary? Is it unrealistic to count calories for the rest
of your life or is that just part of the price you pay for a better
body?
You’re about to learn the answers to these questions and discover a
simple
solution for keeping track of your food intake without having to crunch
numbers every day or become a fanatic about it.
In many
popular diet books,
“Calories don’t count” is a frequently repeated theme. Other popular
programs,
such as Bill Phillip's "Body For Life," stress the importance of energy
intake versus energy output, but recommend that you count “portions”
rather
than calories…
Phillips
wrote,
"There
aren't many people
who can keep track of their calorie intake for an extended period of
time.
As an alternative, I recommend counting 'portions.' A portion of food
is
roughly equal to the size of your clenched fist or the palm of your
hand.
Each portion of protein or carbohydrate typically contains between 100
and 150 calories. For example, one chicken breast is approximately one
portion of protein, and one medium-sized baked potato is approximately
one portion of carbohydrate."
Phillips
makes a good point
that trying to count every single calorie - in the literal sense - can
drive you crazy and is probably not realistic as a lifestyle for the
long
term. It's one thing to count portions instead of calories – that is at
least acknowledging the importance of portion control. However, it's
another
altogether to deny that calories matter.
Calories do
count! Any diet
program that tells you, "calories don't count" or you can "eat all you
want and still lose weight" is a diet you should avoid because you are
being lied to. The truth is, that line is a bunch of baloney designed
to
make a diet sound easier to follow.
Anything
that sounds like
work – such as counting calories, eating less or exercising, tends to
scare
away potential customers! The law of calorie balance is an unbreakable
law of physics: Energy in versus energy out dictates whether you will
gain,
lose or maintain your weight. Period.
I believe
that it's very
important to develop an understanding of and a respect for portion
control
and the law of calorie balance. I also believe it's an important part
of
nutrition education to learn how many calories are in the foods you eat
on a regular basis – including (and perhaps, especially) how many
calories
are in the foods you eat when you dine at restaurants.
The law of
calorie balance
says:
To maintain
your weight,
you must consume the same number of calories you burn. To gain weight,
you must consume more calories than you burn. To lose weight, you must
consume fewer calories than you burn.
If you only
count portions
or if you haven't the slightest idea how many calories you're eating,
it's
a lot more likely that you'll eat more than you realize. (Or you might
take in fewer calories than you should, which triggers your body’s
"starvation
mode" and causes your metabolism to shut down).
So how do
you balance practicality
and realistic expectations with a nutrition program that gets results?
Here's a solution that’s a happy medium between strict calorie counting
and just guessing:
Create a
menu using an EXCEL
spreadsheet or your favorite nutrition software. Crunch all the numbers
including calories, protein, carbs and fats. Once you have your daily
menu,
print it, stick it on your refrigerator (and/or in your daily planner)
and you now have an eating "goal" for the day, including a caloric
target.
Rather than
writing down
every calorie one by one from every morsel of food you eat for the rest
of your life, create a menu plan you can use as a daily goal and
guideline.
If you’re really ambitious, keeping a nutrition journal at least one
time
in your life for at least 4-12 weeks is a great idea and an incredible
learning experience, but all you really need to get started on the road
to a better body is one good menu on paper. If you get bored eating the
same thing every day, you can create multiple menus, or just exchange
foods
using your primary menu as a template.
Using this
meal planning
method, you really only need to “count calories” once when you create
your
menus, not every day, ad infinitum. After you've got a knack for
calories
from this initial discipline of menu planning, then you can estimate
portions
in the future and get a pretty good (and more educated) ballpark figure.
So what’s
the bottom line?
Is it really necessary to count every calorie to lose weight? No. But
it
IS necessary to eat fewer calories then you burn. Whether you count
calories
and eat less than you burn, or you don’t count calories and eat less
than
you burn, the end result is the same – you lose weight. Which would you
rather do: Take a wild guess, or increase your chance for success with
some simple menu planning? I think the right choice is obvious.
For more
information on calories
(including how calculate precisely how many you should eat based on
your
age, activity and personal goals, and for even more practical, proven
fat
loss techniques to help you lose body fat safely, healthfully and
permanently,
check out my e-book, Burn
The Fat, Feed The Muscle.
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