The Dark Side of Calorie Counting - Tips from a Registered Dietitian

Why calorie counting is not always the best approach for health and weight loss.

With a mix of messages online and from your friends, family, and even health care providers, you might be left believing that you have to track and stay under a certain calorie amount everyday in order to lose weight. You might have tried calorie counting for a few days, but found it difficult to keep up with. Perhaps you have continued to do it, but find it hard to know what to do on the days when you don't have time for it or when you want to indulge in a treat.

An important question is: do you really need to know exactly how many calories you are having everyday in order to manage your weight? Does calorie counting actually help or could it make things worse?

The Approach:

Focusing too much on the amount of calories per day can lead you into unhealthy patterns of obsessively worrying about calories, denying yourself nutritious food, feeling hungry, and inevitably giving up and going back to your regular way of eating.

It is not lack of self control that is leading you to give up on your diet and gain the weight back. It is often the approach that is not working.

When starting an approach to improve health or manage weight, an important question to ask is: "is this something I can do in the long-run?"

If you can't keep up with the approach in the long-run, then what will happen afterwards? Will you feel confident in maintaining your health behaviours and weight?

You might feel motivated at the moment, but are you sure you want to track everything you eat in an app for the rest of your life?

Tracking every meal and snack is tedious and time-consuming, and also reinforces the belief that you can't trust your own body cues to know how much to eat.

Should calories in equal calories out?

Despite the fact that "calories in should equal calories out," is a common expression, it is not always true.

When people say "calories in should equal calories out," they imply that people should be able to regulate their weight by eating less calories (calories in) or exercising more (calories out). However, this ignores an important part of the equation: metabolism. If someone is burning calories slowly, it might not be physically possible (or safe) to eat the amount of calories that it would take for weight loss.

Metabolism (which covers a variety of processes in the body, including how your body burns calories) can be affected by various factors including:

• oxidative stress 12,18 and inflammation in the body 7,8

• hormones 6,17

• cell signalling 3

• level of micronutrients in the body 14,15

• food 4

• xenobiotics (substances that are foreign to the body) 4  

• amount of fat tissue 16 or muscle 20

• age 4

• genetics 4 and epigenetics (how genes are expressed) 11

• environmental factors 4

• the gut microbiome 2, 10

• stress 13, 19

• amount of sleep 1

• exercise 6, 18

• medication side effects 9, 16

The calorie counting approach also begs the question:

What is the ideal calorie intake? Is the number that an app has given you based on your weight and height accurate?

These calorie tracking apps haven't taken into consideration the many other factors that influence calorie requirements, including your body composition, the daily fluctuations in your hormones, inflammation in the body, and your activity levels. The arbitrary calorie target numbers on the apps are most likely not accurate at telling you how many calories you need in a day, and trying to follow it just makes your life more difficult than it needs to be.

There are so many behaviours that affect your overall metabolism, including the type of foods you eat, getting enough exercise, getting enough sleep, and reducing stress. This is why calories are not the only important factor when considering weight management.

Does the amount of calories matter?

Amount of calories can still have an impact on weight, but that doesn't mean that you need to count all of the calories that you are consuming in a day.

Instead of tediously counting all the calories you are consuming in a day, it can be much more helpful to focus on where you are getting unnecessary calories. Empty calories is a term used for foods that have minimal nutrients, and they also often do not provide all of the components that would normally help with the feeling of fullness.

Empty calories could include foods and beverages that are high in sugar, such as desserts, juices, and sugar-sweetened beverages, and can also include highly processed foods such as white rice, white bread, chips and french fries. It also includes alcohol. Since these foods do not provides as much of the components that contribute to satiety, it is easy to get excess calories from them. Having too many calories can contribute to weight gain and can have negative impacts on health.

While calories are one small piece of the puzzle when it comes to weight management, the source of calories are much more important to focus on rather than the overall amount of calories. Foods that are full of nutrients can give you the nutrients your body needs for better functioning metabolism, and can also help you feel more full and satisfied.

Your body's natural ability to regulate calories

Your body already has systems in place that are meant to regulate how many calories you consume. This is known as hunger and fullness cues. While you might be out of tune with these signals after ignoring them for too long or after not having enough of the foods that help to trigger these signals, it is still possible to get back in-tune.

Re-learning how to use your hunger and fullness cues and choosing the right types of foods can help you to manage your health and weight, in a much more simple, effective, and sustainable way. Instead of calorie counting, you can spend less time worrying and overanalyzing about the number of calories, and more time enjoying your life.

Additional Facts:

Calories are units of energy that are produced from breaking down sugar, fat, protein, or alcohol.

How are calories used in the body?

Calories are not just waiting around to be burned through physical activity. 50-75% of the calories consumed goes towards vital body functions including those in the brain, liver, kidneys, heart, and muscles, at rest. Another 7-9% of the calories are used during the digestion of food and in the absorption and storage of nutrients 5. In addition to this,15-50% are burned through simple activities of daily living, such as maintaining posture. Lastly, 15-30% can also be burned through purposeful physical activity.

*If you'd like support with creating healthy habits, a registered dietitian can help guide you on ways to manage health and weight in a sustainable way.

Disclaimer:

The content on this site is not meant to replace direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

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