Count-Calories

Hi Alfonso,

I’m wondering what your thoughts are on calorie counting? Do you believe calorie counting is necessary for people to stay at their preferred weight? I’ve counted calories and it’s always frustrating to me. Almost as if I’m a failure for not being able to just eat the right amounts of food for fuel.

I find counting calories makes me MORE obsessed with food; even eating when I’m not hungry to make sure I get “enough” calories. And I have feelings of guilt if I go over my daily allowance. It’s a vicious cycle. What are your thoughts?

Thanks,

Chrystal


Hello Chrystal, how are you? Yes I do believe in calorie counting, especially when you’re initially starting a new eating regimen. However I totally understand your frustration and agree that at first, it’s quite annoying amongst other things.

The truth is that most people have no clue how many calories they consume on a daily basis, and the ones who think they know are usually way off. But knowing what and how much you’re eating is a crucial element in planning a better, healthier diet – especially for those people that are trying to lose body fat. The simple fact is unless you know what you’re eating, it’s nearly impossible to make intelligent adjusts to your diet; it’s like throwing darts in the dark and hoping for a bullseye, or that you’ll even hit the board!

Plus, you must remember that you can effectively train your metabolism to either slow down from less food, or speed up from a bit more. In other words, if you eat too little or well below what your body requires for an extended period of time, your body will adjust by lowering it’s requirements and slowing your metabolism. However someone that exercises, and eats a healthy diet can actually raise their metabolism and daily requirements by exercising and eating the appropriate food.

Often times I hear from people who say that they don’t eat breakfast due to a lack of hunger, and that may be the truth. But what’s more likely to have happened is that they stopped eating breakfast, or possibly never started, and at some point their body adjusted to the lack of fuel. So now they literally aren’t hungry, as they require very little fuel. Incidentally, I’ve never met someone that is fit, lean, and in shape that doesn’t eat breakfast. It’s usually a subject that comes up when a person asks me about food because they’re trying to lose weight. Coincidence? Not likely. Remember your body is ridiculously smart, and will adapt to most any condition that you can throw at it.

With that said, I believe calorie counting is necessary in the early stages of learning of about food and how your body processes it. But like anything else in life, once you’ve done it long enough it becomes second nature. I personally haven’t actually counted calories in my own diet for years, as I can visually look at most foods and know how many calories they contain. I can then gauge how much I need to eat. Granted, my career is in the Fitness Industry so I’ll have more experience than the average fitness enthusiast. But I know plenty of people that can just look at food and know what a portion size is.

It’s really not all that difficult to learn the various calorie amounts of health foods. It just takes a little repetitiveness and you’ll get the hang of it. Counting calories is absolutely necessary in a successful fat loss or weight maintenance plan. It gives you baseline numbers to work from, and after 2 weeks or so if nothing changes you can go back, review, make adjustments and continue for another 2 weeks. It’s part of a process that will help you get to your goals. How can you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you came from?

Let me know how it goes and if any of you out there would like to book a more in-depth consultation with me – just drop me a line via the How To Book button in the sidebar.

And if you have a question – please just click here. I’d love to help you!

 

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