To Track or Not to Track That’s the Real Question
You’ve heard the saying ad nauseum “if you want to lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories,” but:
How do you know how many calories to eat?
How do you know if they’re accurate?
How do you know if it actually works?
Those are all great questions and this article will do its best to address all of that and more.
Sit back, grab yourself a glass of wine (preferably water if it was up to me,) but no judgement here.
Let’s talk about calories, shall we?
I think we shall…
What Exactly Is Calorie Tracking?
Great question Sally. If there is a Sally out there reading this, I just want to tell you, I’ve used your name so many times in my articles it’s borderline creepy.
Calorie tracking is a method of monitoring how much you eat or drink on a daily basis.
A few reasons to track your calories is to either help you maintain a healthy weight, lose weight or gain weight, depending on your specific goals.
You can do this through an app. Am sure you’ve heard of MyFitnessPal.
They’re numerous other app’s you can use, my personal favorite is Mike’s macros. You can find it in the app store for both iPhone and Android.
Just for full transparency, I have no affiliate links to this app, in case you were wondering.
Is Tracking Your Calories Necessary?
Initially yes. Am sure there are a ba-jillion strategies you can use to help you lose weight without tracking calories. I’ve actually written an article on a few of those strategies HERE if you are interested.
Having said that, tracking your calories is a powerful tool for achieving your health and fitness goals. Whether you want to lose weight, gain muscle, or simply maintain a healthy lifestyle, monitoring your calorie intake can help you understand your eating habits and make more informed decisions about what you eat.
Calorie tracking is a skill like most things in life that requires a level of competency. I can say from personal experience and having coached online, knowing how to track your calories just makes the whole process of losing weight a lot easier.
Calories are a unit of energy that our bodies use to function. When you eat more calories than your body needs, that excess energy is stored as fat. Over-time, this can lead to weight gain and other health problems.
On the other hand, eating fewer calories than your body needs can lead to weight loss. By tracking your calorie intake, you can ensure that you’re eating the right number of calories for your goals.
Calorie tracking can also help you become more aware of your eating habits. It’s easy to under-estimate the number of calories in the foods we eat. We often forget about snacks or small bites that can add up over the course of the day.
By keeping track of what you eat, you can identify patterns in your eating habits and make changes as needed.
I am not saying it will be easy, but it’s necessary. Especially early on, so get on board.
How Much Should You Eat to Lose Weight?
If this picture is a glimpse of how you currently feel, don’t worry you’re not alone. I felt the same way my first time around.
Here is your answer:
Use your goal weight x 12 = # the number of calories you should eat to lose weight
Let’s take myself for example:
I currently weigh: 190lb’s
My goal is to weigh: 170lb’s
To reach my goal, I would need to:
My goal weight 170lb’s x 12 = 2,040 calories (# of calories to lose weight)
There may come a point when you stall out or plateau. Do me a favor and increase your activity level first before reducing your calories.
Increase your step counts throughout the day
Walk more
Bike
Take the stairs instead of the elevator
Set-up a standing desk at work if you can
Get involved in enjoyable recreational activities (basketball, football, pick-a ball, etc.)
Test this out for the next 3-4 weeks and if the scale still doesn’t budge, then I would recommend reducing your calories by about 500 below your current calorie intake.
For example, if you’re currently eating at 2,040 calories and you’ve now stalled out for about a month. You’ve increased your activity level and the scale still hasn’t dropped.
Decrease your calorie intake from 2,040 to 1,540. That should do it.
Is Calorie Tracking Accurate?
Nope.
Tracking your calories is an estimate, I don’t know of any app that can accurately measure the number of calories you eat. I could be wrong, in the event that I am, let me know in the comments below.
A better question would be, how do you know if it actually works or not?
Debating on whether you ate 200 or 190 calories is a complete waste of time. That doesn’t solve the problem at hand.
Let me put it this way, if your tracking app told you to eat a total of 1,800 calories every day to lose weight, but you somehow found out that you were supposed to eat 1,600 calories instead.
Let’s say after a month of tracking, you ended up losing 8 pounds on an 1,800-calorie deficit as opposed to losing 10 pounds on a 1,600-calorie deficit.
That two-pound difference is just not that big of a deal. It’s just not. Reason being, the actual problem at hand; you wanting to lose weight, is being solved.
Now am contemplating whether this rant brought you any value. Am honestly trying to figure out whether I should even keep this portion of the article or not.
Different Ways to Track Your Calories
There are many ways to track your calorie intake. The best method for you will depend on your personal preferences and lifestyle. Here a few common methods to consider:
Food Dairy
This method of tracking involves writing down everything you eat and drink throughout the day. You can do this with pen and paper, which I don’t recommend for obvious reasons.
It’s 2023, there is no reason to be using pen and paper. You have a phone. Just use one of the many calories tracking app to do it for you, like MyFitnessPal.
Food Scale
Using a food scale can help you measure the exact amount of food you’re eating, which can be helpful when tracking your calories.
Nutrition Labels
Most packaged foods come with nutrition labels that includes the calorie count per serving. By reading these labels, it can help you accurately track your calorie intake.
I’ve written an article on the subject, HERE. It’s beginner friendly that walks you in a step-by-step manner from knowing how to read nutrition labels to eliminating all the fluff and identifying what you need to help you reach your goal.
How to Get Started
If you’re new to tracking, it can be overwhelming at first, but over-time like any-thing else it will get easier. Here are some tips to help you get started:
Set a Goal
Do you want to lose weight, gain muscle, or simply maintain your current weight? Once you have a clear goal in mind, you can determine the number of calories to eat each day.
To lose weight: goal weight x 12 = number of calories to eat to lose weight
To maintain your weight: current weight x 14 = number of calories to maintain weight
To gain muscle: current weight + (500 or 700) = number of calories to gain weight
Download Calorie Tracker
There are many calorie trackers you can get for free on the app store like MyFitnesspal, Mike’s Macro’s, etc.
Play around with the app to get a feel on how to use it. There is always You-Tube and Google tutorials to help.
Buy a Food Scale
This ensures the accuracy of the food you’re measuring, which makes it easier to not over-estimate how much you’re eating.
Aside from a food scale, measuring utensils from cups and spoons can also be great tools to ensure accuracy.
Track Everything
You want to track everything you put in your mouth, this includes snacks and drinks. Remember these are all estimates, there is no need to aim for perfection. However, coming close to your total net calories for the day is what you want.
It’s imperative to be honest with yourself. I mean you must be right? Am not the one trying to lose weight here, you are. Pretending and lying to yourself isn’t going to do you any good.
Stick to the Game Plan
Nothing matters if you can’t stick to your game plan. Stick to the game plan no matter what. There will be temptations and occasional setbacks:
- You will be hungry, NOT starving, but hungry enough.
- There are times when you will have to say NO to dessert or treats because you just don’t have enough calories for it.
- You will have to limit your favorite treats and instead introduce more whole foods.
- There are times when you’re not going to feel like bingeing on your favorite foods because of situational events (break-up, death in the family, financial problems, marriage problems, etc.)
You’re going to have to push-yourself to work out and eat right regardless. So long as your 80% consistent, weight loss is imminent.
Losing weight isn’t about eating certain foods and avoiding others. Of course, I would prefer you incorporate more whole foods in your diet than junk food. However, if you don’t care about body composition then by all means eat whatever you want so long as you’re in a deficit, you will lose weight.
A perfect example is professor Haub who lost 27 pounds eating twinkies, Oreos, and Doritos.
Keep in mind body composition is what you want, whether you realize that or not. My guess is, you aren’t just looking to lose weight, you want to build muscle as well.
You want that “tone” look.
To get that, you want more muscle mass than body fat. My friend, I recommend you start tracking your calories, like right now……