Calorie Counting: Very Real but Inadequate

If you’ve ever ventured into the weight loss, you’ve probably come across calorie counting or “calories-in, calories-out.” This is the simple method of logging all the food that you eat by getting an app on your phone, buying a food scale, weighing all the food you eat, weighing yourself frequently to make sure your calories are on track, logging all your exercise, and continually dropping calories when weight loss stalls.

If that sounds wholly unsustainable and a great way to develop an eating disorder, you’re just a crazy anti-science bigot!

The calories-in, calories-out style of dieting certainly works on a technical level and even works on an application level for a certain group of people. The most fervent supporters of this method of dieting are usually figure competitors (bodybuilders and bikini competitors) and that makes sense for them. In order to get down to an inhuman level of body fat, they have to know exactly what is going into their body. They can’t rely on nature processes or hunger signals because humans aren't supposed to do what they’re doing.

I’m actually a big fan of bodybuilding but this method of dieting is fairly inadequate for the general population. Most people just want to live their lives and not worry about tracking every calorie they are eating or how much cardio they need to do everyday. Just taking time out of their day to go to the gym and make food instead of getting take out is already a stretch. Especially if you’re on the overeating/food addiction side of things (like most overweight and obese people are).

Telling someone who is overweight, “it’s fine to eat that Oreo as long as it fits into your calories for the day,” is like telling an alcoholic it’s fine to have “just one” beer.

The western world is in this mess because we evolved in a world of scarcity and we’re now surrounded by easy to actress hyperpalatable food (food that tastes great that you can eat a buttload of). Cereal, potato chips, french fries, soda, etc. are all designed by food companies to override satiety signals in your brain and have you consume more and buy more of their products.

Eating “just one” Oreo is next to impossible for most people because they weren’t designed to be consumed that way. Our bodies and brains weren’t designed to cope with the modern food environment.

“Don’t be a pussy” and “you need better willpower” are unhelpful when the brain is literally being overwritten by subconscious internal signals to keep eating.

More To The Story

This is why I consider “calories-in, calories-out” a half-truth. Study after study, reseacher paper after research paper confirm that, as far as weight loss goes, calories are all that matters (with some caveats). There was even a professor that showed you could lose weight eating just twinkies if you were still eating less calories than you were expending. A very interesting contrast to this idea are the two movies Super Size Me (2004) and Fathead (2009).

In both movies, the documentary maker ate a diet of exclusively Mcdonalds. While the creator of Fathead also counted his calories and lowered his carbohydrates while eating an all Mcdonalds diet, the creator of Super Size Me didn’t. He ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at Mcdonalds and would “super size” his meals anytime they asked if he wanted the upgrade.

While the creator of Fathead did a good job showing what calorie counting and lowered carb intake could do, even while eating a fast food diet, Super Size Me showed something unexpected.

Near the end of the movie Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) was starting to become “addicted” to the food he was eating. He talked about feeling tired, groggy, and depressed and would only get repreves from these feelings when he’d get his dose of Mcdonald’s meals. He also said the more he ate it, the more he craved it and would have headaches when he didn’t eat it.

So while you can eat anything and lose weight as long as you're tracking your calories, you’d very likely run into issues if you’ve had a hard time with these foods in the past. Many people talk about “waking up the food demon” when they eat processed food after dieting. Once they have that one cheese burger, it leads to some ice cream. Then, the next meal, they have cravings for other processed food items and the cycle continues.

Why fight the uphill battle? Why chance waking the food demon?

If you’re someone that has no issues controlling yourself around processed food and you have no probleming weighing all the food you eat and logging your calories, then calorie counting could be the way to go. If you’re a food addict (like myself and millions of Americans) this is a losing strategy. You have to rely on strong will power everyday.

When you start eating the right foods, that box of doughnuts at the office doesn’t look as tempting as it did when you were a carboholic. The pizza at your friends party doesn’t call to you as strongly. The hunger signals in your brain start working again and your body starts counting calories for you. No food scale required.