One of the most common practices many people adopt when they want to lose weight is calories counting.

Calories counting means keeping track of how many calories you are consuming each day. 

This can be a very effective way to ensure you are not overeating, but it often leads to unhealthy eating patterns and excessive calorie cutting.

So, it’s important to be aware of how you can positively make use of counting your calories— not to cut calories to starve, but to boost your nutrient intake and promote weight loss in a healthy way. 

Disclaimer: If you struggle with any of the eating disorders or disordered eating, please avoid counting your calories. It can trigger an eating disorder.

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Should You Count Calories To Lose Weight?

I don’t recommend counting your calories intake on a daily basis, because it can spoil your relationship with food. And that will be a blunder if you want to live a healthy and happy life.

Frankly, if in general, your diet is mostly good, you eat mostly homemade food, and don’t consume too much-processed food regularly, don’t bother counting calories, because you’re likely not overdoing it. Healthy foods are generally not very high in calories, and when you mostly eat healthy, you can enjoy occasionally eating unhealthy foods of your choice.

Plus, in my experience, staying active— not just doing exercise, but also staying active (doing household chores, walking more, using the stairs, etc)— is more beneficial than focusing on calorie intake like a hawk.

Rather than cutting out calorie intake from your diet, focus more on using up more calories by active living.

Your grandma probably never exercised, but she probably still leads a healthier life than most modern young people. This is because back in the day, people lived an active life and walked more. That’s what we need as well— an active life overall.

Weight loss is more than just counting calories.

However, if your diet is not that healthy i.e. you eat a lot of junk and processed foods, calorie counting can benefit you.

I’ll explain how you can positively use calorie counting in a minute. But first, you’ll have to understand the simple mechanics of weight loss.

How Do We Lose Weight?

The concept of weight loss is simple: we all use a certain amount of energy each day. This includes our bodily functions like brain functions, respiration, digestion, etc, plus the energy we spend in movement, like sitting, standing, walking, running, doing chores, etc. This is known as TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).

Depending on how active you are your TDEE is going to be higher, and if you live a sedentary life, your TDEE will be lower. In short, the total energy you spend in a day. 

Only when the amount of energy you burn in a day is more than the amount of energy you consume, you’ll lose weight. 

For example, if your TDEE is 1800 calories, and you consume calories less than 1800, you will lose weight. Similarly, if you consume more than 1800 calories you will gain weight, and if you consume roughly about 1800 calories every day, you will maintain your weight.

I use this calculator to calculate my TDEE and plan my weight loss. TDEE at calculator.net. It’s a free tool.

So, How Calories Counting Can Help Lose Weight?

As mentioned earlier, I recommend against calorie counting because it can mess up your relationship with food. 

I think it’s important to look at your food as a source of nutrition and health; it should be an expression of self-love to your body. But when you start counting calories you begin looking at your food merely as a source of calories, and as the popular false belief says “calories are bad”! This is far from the truth.

That said, this doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of this practice. 

I recommend calories counting for a couple of days in the beginning, right when you start your weight loss routine. 

Here’s how I use calories counting:

1. USE CALORIES COUNTING TO ANALYSE THE QUALITY OF YOUR DIET.

When I started counting my calorie intake, it was the very first time I actually picked up the pack of chips and looked at its label. This made me realise how insanely calorie-dense junk foods are. 

Now, this doesn’t mean you can never eat chips. I do eat chips. It’s just something to keep in mind, especially if you are trying to lose weight. 

1 bag of chips can contain as many as 500 calories, which is equivalent to one whole healthy meal, and the calories coming from processed junk are empty calories with no nutritious value.

So, this way I realised what elements of my diet are adding unhealthy calories and triggering my sugar cravings. 

I eat homemade food, so the moment I reduced my junk food intake, I was no longer overdoing calories. I didn’t need to calculate my calories every day anymore because healthy food is nutritious, filling and not too high in calories. You will never overdo calories if you consume homemade food.

So, this is one way you can use calories counting productively.

2. USE IT TO CHECK IF YOU ARE OVEREATING OR NOT. 

As I’ve already explained above, if you want to lose weight ensuring that you are not overeating is essential. Counting your calories can help here if you eat a lot of processed and fried foods.

Once you can see what are the unhealthy elements in your diet, you can begin to eliminate them from your diet.

For a slightly faster weight loss, restrict no more than a couple of hundred calories from your diet at most, if at all, and add workouts to lose more calories instead of cutting food intake to extreme levels. 

Focus more on not overdoing calories, rather than cutting out calories from your diet.

3. USE IT TO ENSURE YOU ARE NOT UNDER-EATING EITHER.

The last time I re-started working out daily after a period of break, I was not eating enough protein, and this eventually resulted in an injury due to weak muscles. 

With the app I use to record my diet intake, I figured out my protein intake was less than required. This is especially important if you work out, as you need protein to heal and strengthen muscles.

I was able to then keep an eye on my protein intake afterwards. Although the injury caused me to take a long break anyway, I know better now. 

If overeating is not good, neither is undereating, and you can ensure you are eating enough by noting down what you are eating.

Focus More On Active Living

Active living is the key to a healthy weight.

Active living not only means working out regularly but also keeping your body physically active by doing chores, walking more, using the stairs, sitting less, etc.

When you live an active life, your TDEE naturally increases. So most people don’t actually need to cut down on calories unless their doctor has advised them to lose weight and they’re doing it under professional supervision. But this is an exceptional case, not the most common scenario.

For most of us, active living is enough to lose weight. The weight loss will be gradual, without traumatising your metabolism, and you will be able to maintain the lost weight afterwards as well. That’s a challenge too– maintaining the lost weight.

So, again, focus on active living more than restricting your dietary intake.

Don’t eat less. Spend more calories.

So, What Should You Remember About Calories Counting?

Counting your calories may or may not be helpful for you. Avoid it completely if you struggle with any eating disorders or disordered eating as it can trigger your issues.

A few ways, however, you can positively take advantage of calories counting is to analyse the quality of your diet, and to ensure you are not overeating or under-eating. 

Please remember, that eating less can be more damaging to your weight loss efforts in the long term. And so, we need to walk away from the practice of extreme calories cutting if we want to live a healthier life and lose weight.

Focusing more on active living will be a better approach to weight loss than calories counting.

© Project: Living Better 2024