The Un-Diet Diet: Stop Counting Calories
By Stephanie Walsh, MNT, CEPC, CPT
ost likely in your journey of staying healthy and fit you count, or have counted, calories. Whether in the pursuit of some number on the scale or an improvement in health markers, counting calories seems like a smart way to stay on target with your goals. You may even use a fancy gadget to tell you how many steps you’ve taken, how many calories you’ve burned and how you’ve slept. These gadgets can be very useful to motivate you to move more or go to bed earlier, but they won’t necessarily help you reach your health goals by counting calories alone. That is because the number of calories your body actually consumes and burns is mostly a guessing game.
M The Problem with Calorie Counting
It is assumed that every number on a food label, piece of cardio equipment or fitness tracker must be accurate. In reality, the amount of calories you absorb from a food and how your body burns those calories varies wildly from day to day and person to person.
1.Calories In. There are many problems with accurately estimat- ing how many calories your body absorbs in a day.
• Food companies and databases are allowed to use average calories for a specific food item. This makes sense, but the food you choose may not be the exact calories they predict. For instance, an apple could be anywhere from 80 to 120
calories and a “large” sweet potato calorie count could vary by over 300 calories!
• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows food companies to be up to 20% inaccurate with their calorie estimate. This means a “100 Calorie” snack pack could actu- ally be 120 calories and a 150 calorie yogurt may be closer to 200.
• Your body absorbs fewer calories from nuts and seeds and more calories from fiber rich foods. Counting calories for a kale salad with slivered almonds would be very imprecise since you may absorb 32% less of estimated calories from almonds and 28% more than estimated for kale.
• The way you prepare your food will change its calorie count. Chopping or blending your food as well as cooking your meats will increase calories absorbed from those foods.
• Eyeballing your portion sizes will affect the calories con- sumed. It is very easy to scoop a spoonful of nut butter on your oatmeal and say it is one tablespoon and track it as such. However, a rounded spoonful of nut butter can add 100+ calories to your estimate.
• Your gut bacteria has a say in how you absorb calories. Based on the ratio of different species of gut bacteria, your body could absorb an additional 150 calories.
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