The Truth About Counting Calories And Weight Loss
Author: Tom Venuto, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, author of the #1 best-selling
e-book Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle
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
at www.burnthefat.com
Train hard and expect success!
Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle
Founder & CEO of
Burn The Fat Inner Circle
About The Author
 Tom Venuto is the author of the #1 best seller, Burn the Fat,
Feed the Muscle: Fat Burning Secrets of the World's Best Bodybuilders
and Fitness Models. Tom is a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fat loss
expert who achieved an astonishing 3.7% body fat level without drugs
or supplements. Discover how to increase your metabolism and burn
stubborn body fat, find out which foods burn fat and which foods
turn to fat, plus get a free fat loss report and mini course by
visiting Tom's site at www.BurnTheFat.com
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