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Weight loss occurs in a calorie deficit, where a person burns more calories than they consume.
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Calorie counting is not an exact science, but it can be a useful educational tool.
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Avoid common mistakes when using calorie counting apps to help you reach your goals.
Although it is not necessary count calories To lose fat (and it’s not for everyone), calories always count.
Weight loss occurs in a calorie deficit when people burn more calories than they consume. You don’t have to count calories to be in a deficit, but it can help eliminate the guesswork.
However, some things can complicate counting calories accurately. It is well documented that most people do not declare what they eat and drink, and nutritional information on packaging may be legally absent by 20% in the US.
Furthermore, the body does not absorb calories from food equally — Proteins, for example, burn more energy when digested than fats and carbohydrates. This means that calorie counting will never be an exact science, so there’s no point in dwelling on the details.
But tracking calories can still be a useful way to Educate yourself about the energy in different foods and make sure you get the results you want, whether it’s fat loss, weight maintenance, or muscle gain.
Registered Nutritionist Angela Clucas told Business Insider three common mistakes to avoid when tracking calories to help you reach your goals.
1. Add calories burned with exercise
Since weight loss comes down to a calorie deficit, it’s understandable to assume that moving more should mean you can eat more.
However, it’s not as simple as that.
Fitness trackers They have been shown to vastly overestimate the number of calories users burn when exercising, and research suggests that formal exercise actually only accounts for about 5-10% of our total consumption. daily energy expenditure. The rest comes from simply keeping our bodies functioning and what’s known as NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), which is essentially every other movement you do in your life, from climbing stairs to cleaning.
“I would never advise my clients to eat the calories they had eaten during exercise, mainly because when you look at the data collected in terms of calorie burn on activity trackers and compare it to laboratory studies, it is up to 93% inaccurate . ” clucas saying.
Instead of exercise to burn caloriesExercise to build strength, maintain muscle (which helps you lose fat), and improve your health and mood, Clucas said.
Set a calorie goal you can meet and don’t add back the number of calories you think you’ve burned, as doing so could help you get out of your calorie deficit.
2. Record food after having consumed it
Clucas said one of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to lose fat by counting calories is sitting up at night and counting what they ate that day. This is problematic because a) you can’t do anything about the food you’ve already eaten and b) you’ll probably forget some things.
“Retrospective tracking is meaningless because you can’t change it. I try to encourage people to do proactive tracking,” Clucas said.
She tells her clients that “the phone eats first,” meaning they should record their food before consuming it. By checking the nutritional information before eating something, she won’t be surprised by its calorie content when it’s too late.
For example, some foods that have a “health halo” may have more calories than many people think, such as fried sweet potatoes.
“Nothing is healthy or unhealthy, but you should know that they have the same calories as regular French fries,” Clucas said.
If you track your food first, you can decide, for example, to eat just half of a high-calorie snack and save the rest for another day, or eat the whole thing and make a lighter dinner to make sure you hit your goal, he added.
Another strategy is to record what you are going to eat the next day the night before, which will help you follow an eating plan according to your goals.
3. Forget cooking oils, dressings and sauces
When tracking calories, it’s easy to forget to record them oils, spreads, dressings and sauces in home cooking and it may be impossible to know how much is used in restaurants or in meals prepared by others.
The fats that make our food taste delicious, such as olive oil and butter, are higher in energy than protein and carbohydrates, so forgetting to record them could mean you record a meal as having 100 or more fewer calories than it should have.
Clucas said if you know you’ll always forget about olive oil, that’s fine, but maybe adjust your initial calorie goal accordingly.
The same goes for small bites like your kids’ crusts or a bite of your partner’s burrito. This doesn’t mean you can never eat these things, you just have to be aware of them.
Read the original article on Business Insider
