One of the first recommendations you’ll hear for someone wanting to lose weight is to begin by counting calories.
Although weighing your food and counting calories does work for some people, the reality is that this approach to weight loss has an astonishingly high failure rate.
This strategy may be “based in science”, but it regularly fails in application.
The Top 3 Issues With Counting Calories
The number of calories in the foods you eat are estimates.
This is where the concept of counting calories being “based in science” can be misleading. The FDA allows companies to use 5 different formulas to estimate calories and a standard deviation up to 20% is acceptable.
This means that something listed as 150 calories exists on a range between 120 calories and 180 calories.
How ripe is your banana? The ripeness affects caloric availability. The second issue is that as individuals we each absorb a different amount of the calories from the food we consume.
Thirdly, Americans are notoriously bad at determining healthy portion sizes. Our super-sized culture has heavily influenced our concept of a normal sized portion. The good news is that there is another way to lose weight without counting calories.
The Three Pillars of Nutrition
Whether or not you’re a card-carrying member of Camp Calorie Counters, the foundation of your nutrition is built upon three pillars: Food Quality, Food Quantity and Food Timing.
Food Quality
All calories are not created equal. The popular 100 calorie snack bags do not offer the same nutritional value as 100 calories from fruits or vegetables.
When the majority of your meals are composed of minimally processed single ingredient whole foods (lean protein, fruits and vegetables), you’re more likely to get the micronutrients your body needs to thrive.
Food Quantity
As mentioned earlier, Americans aren’t known for our skills at eyeballing healthy portion sizes. Although using a food scale to determine portion sizes can be helpful, it isn’t always practical.
This is the reason we recommend learning to use your hand as a guide to determine portion sizes. You can’t take a food scale with you everywhere you go but you’re always allowed to bring your hands!
Food Timing
There isn’t a magical number of meals you should eat on a daily basis.
This is highly individual and is often influenced by your schedule. The Thermic Effect of Food when consuming 2,000 calories is the same whether it’s consumed in 2 meals or 5 meals.
The Standard American Diet (with the appropriate acronym of SAD) is consumed over a period of 14 to 16 hours per day. Studies from Dr. Satchin Panda (Stanford researcher) have found several health benefits from eating in less than a 12-hour window per day (like between 7am and 7pm). Many people have found that reducing this window further through Intermittent Fasting allows them to better control their overall caloric intake.
When it comes to food timing, there are 2 rules that apply universally.
The first is don’t consume calories (by way of food or drink) the first hour upon waking.
The second is don’t consume calories within 2 hours of going to bed. Digestion of your food requires a significant amount of energy and late night snacking prevents optimal digestion which in turn impacts the quality of your sleep.
What Progress Looks Like
Most people believe that when they start making changes, their progress will be linear and nothing short of awe-inspiring. You might change to look like the left side of the picture below. Reality is more like the right side of the image.
Change runs in cycles of Motivation followed by Frustration which requires Recalibration of your thoughts to stay on track.
When it comes to weight loss, everyone is trying to take a static measurement of a dynamic variable. Your weight changes throughout the day and exists on a range.
If you’re the type of person who weighs yourself every morning, find an app or spreadsheet that will compute your daily or weekly average weight. Your trajectory is more important than your position.
Our Top 3 Recommendations
Eat primarily (80% or more) minimally processed single ingredient whole foods.
What are the 3 protein sources, 3 fruits and 3 vegetables you enjoy on a regular basis?
Keep these items well-stocked in your home and keep Red Light Foods (those you can’t control yourself around) out of the house. Instead of looking through hundreds of recipes, find a few different ways to prepare each protein source and vegetable so you’ll have a simple way of finding variety.
Plan Your Meals In Advance.
Waiting until you’re hungry to make a decision about WHAT or WHERE you’ll eat significantly increases your chances of making a bad decision. We recommend using a Food Journal which can also be used to map out your decisions ahead of time.
Use Your Hand As A Portion Guide
This can be a real eye-opener for some people as it was for me so you may want to reference this Calorie Control Guide from Precision Nutrition. I prefer a simple approach, but simple things aren’t always easy.
Growing up I learned two habits when it came to my eating. Fill Your Plate and Clear Your Plate. When I first started practicing using my hand as a guide, I struggled because I couldn’t fill up the wagon wheel sized dinner plates we used. When we started using smaller dinner plates, I was able to improve this skill.
Conclusion
There are many different approaches to losing weight and ultimately it comes down to finding the method that works best for you. Whether you prefer a specific macro balance, counting points or calories or a simpler approach, remember that success isn’t a straight line.
Learning to manage the ups and downs is a critical part of the journey.
