I want you to eliminate the concept of “calories” from your mind altogether.
Rather than helping people accurately track their energy surplus or deficit, calorie counting has given people a false sense of control over their diet and physical activity levels.
Instead of being the “magic bullet” that enables us to lose that gut once and for all, we end up burning up all our willpower on a task that is evidently ineffective at promoting weight loss.
Revenge of the Nerds 2011
I have a confession: I’m a total nerd.
I spent my college years studying science and engineering, and I’m not ashamed to say that some of my favorite classes in college included quantum chemistry, linear algebra, and multivariable calculus. Yikes!
These days I toil away performing research in the biofuels industry. Lab coat, goggles, the whole nine yards. The only thing I’m missing is a pocket protector and glasses held together with tape.
So now I’m breaking out the calculator, pen and paper, and riding my steed back into the fray to do battle with the evil menace that is Calorie Counting, confident that I’ll come out the victor.
Breakin’ the Law?
First off, may the record show that I am no denier of the first law of thermodynamics.
Until someone proves to me that the human body is capable of spontaneous energy generation I will stick to my guns and assert that, indeed, it is necessary to eat less and/or exercise more in order to lose weight.
Where I part with most everyone else is that I believe that conscious caloric restriction (i.e. forcing yourself into a state of hunger and/or exhaustion–the typical “torture” route to fitness preached in countless best-selling books and DVDs) is only one of many ways to do so, and is in fact an unsustainable and unsuccessful way.
The Math Behind the Calories
‘Scuze me while I geek out, but let’s take a look at the numbers, shall we?
Let’s assume that a hypothetical man (let’s call him Hector) has decided he wants to maintain the weight he is at and so starts keeping track of every calorie in everything he eats. Every nutrition label is followed, FitDay is consulted extensively, and countless hours are spent tracking and analyzing.
He determines that his daily caloric intake should be 2,500 kcal, which is what The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) currently suggests that the average man should consume every day. Over the course of a year, Hector will therefore consume 912,500 kcal, dangerously close to a million of those little buggers.
But a pound of fat contains a mere 3,500 kcal.
So if Hector wants to gain less than a pound of fat per year, those calories he is so diligently counting must NOT exceed 3,500 kcal over the course of 365 days, whether it comes in one big binge over the holidays, or merely eating 9.6 kcal too much every day. (That’s less than two peanuts!)
To give you an idea of the accuracy of his calorie counting necessary to prevent the gain of one pound of fat, we take the number of calories in a pound of fat, divide that by the number of calories consumed in a year, and multiply by 100%.
In other words, If Hector is studiously counting every calorie, those counts need to be accurate to within 3,500 kcal / 912,500 kcal * 100% = 0.38%. Similarly, if Bob had lower standards and was simply interested in gaining less than 10 pounds per year, his calorie counting would need to be accurate to within 3.8%. But is it really possible to know the calorie content of your food this precisely?
Calories: The Shocking Truth
On average, the listed calorie counts on restaurant meals and grocery products average somewhere between 15 and 20 percent higher than the actual calorie counts of the food as verified by laboratory tests.
Hmmm, let’s see… If we assume that these calorie counts are 18% higher than listed (as this study found), that completely blows away the 3.8% accuracy needed to prevent a gain of ten pounds per year, to say nothing of the measly 0.38% necessary to prevent gaining one pound per year.
In fact, if you were to count calories to a T, that 18% disparity would hypothetically leave you 47 pounds heavier at the end of the year than you were at the beginning.
Aw, shit!
But let’s be honest. That’s not the last of your problems. I mean really, do you honestly think you can keep track of every single calorie in every single food you consume? What happens if you eat less–or more–of the serving size (whatever the hell that means, anyway). Do you just guesstimate? And how about those cheat days? Everyone has ’em. Do you really believe that you can accurately guess your caloric consumption these days?
My point is this: most people believe that ballpark estimates are good enough when it comes to calorie counting. But as I’ve shown you, it takes a knowledge of the true energy content of food that is far beyond our ability to accurately measure–much less our realistic willingness to obsess over–in order for calorie counting to really be a successful tool.
The Hard Calorie Truth
Counting calories should work in theory, but it fails in practice.
But even the most ardent calorie counter would be hard-pressed to pack on nearly 50 pounds in a year. So what’s really going on here?
Well, more than I really have time to get into, but here’s a snapshot.
By any measure, the inaccuracy in claimed calorie counts is far greater than the accuracy you need to effectively lose weight (or simply keep it steady).
This understatement of caloric content by the food companies and restaurants is really unsurprising, when you think about it. In our calorie-conscious culture, consumers are demanding low-calorie food. What’s one way for food companies to meet that need? Why, under-reporting, of course! (Ya gotta sell them burgers, after all.)
And here’s the best part: it’s all perfectly legal. The USDA only stipulates that the listed calorie content of food be within 20% of the actual content. The horror, the horror.
In other words: calorie counting is utterly worthless.
But, But, But…
But maybe we can simply add 18% to all the calorie counts of foods we eat?
Sadly, no.
The problems with the “eat less, exercise more” paradigm go much deeper than that, as I outlined in a previous post. To briefly summarize, the change in energy stores in the body is influenced by many different factors, including, but not limited to:
- Gene expression
- Hormones
- Enzymes
- Appetite
- Energy Levels
- Metabolism
- Digestion
- Thermic Effect of Food
- Food Consumed
- Activity Level
Almost everyone focuses on 9 and 10 alone, which is a grave mistake.
Food consumed and activity level are the most within your conscious control, which is perhaps why they have been so over-emphasized, while 1 – 8 are largely “unconscious.”
But you CAN influence these unconscious factors, and it is in fact the more efficient way to get into (and stay in) shape. I went into how to optimize your diet at length on a previous post and will be giving the same treatment to exercise and rest in the near future.
Bottom line: eat better, move smarter, and relax harder. Eliminate harmful temptations, build new positive routines, and make slow and steady progress. You’ll be surprised how much more effective getting (and staying) in shape is when you don’t have to starve yourself or spend half your life at the gym.
I'm a science geek, food lover, and wannabe surfer.
{ 14 comments }
Wow, those are some figures I’ve never seen before. Really makes you think about the food industry and calories as a whole.
Suppose the only way to lose weight is to just eat healthy and exercise, using common sense
Haha yeah counting calories suxs it makes people give a false sense of security. if they are still fat in 4 weeks they scratch their heads and you hear this all the time ” but I’m eating the right amount of calories”
My answer either weigh yourself (not the best option), use your clothes (better), look in the mirror ( I prefer this) any changes ? good …None ( eat less next week)…. that’s the best way to count calories is not to!
Raymond
Quantum chemistry? I’ve never heard of that I’ll have to a Google it and become an expert …haha
I’m going to disagree in part that with the basis that counting calories is utterly worthless because of the inaccuracy in the amount of calories that are actually in the food.
If you go from not counting calories to counting calories, you are taking a leap to counting something. meaning, you are coming up with a ballpark figure of the amount of calories you need to eat to lose weight that can be just as inaccurate as the amount of calories listed on the side of a box of food.
I used to have an actual menu for every day of the week telling me exactly how many grams of protein, carbs, and fat I had in the exact serving of food that I ate.
Let’s say the bottom line was that I was taking in 2,500 calories based on all of those calculations. Maybe those calculations are right, and maybe in reality I’m actually taking in 2,750 calories a day, instead of 2,500 calories.
Every week I get on the scale and see that I weigh less than the week before. Which means, in the end, regardless of whether it’s 2,500 calories or whether it’s really 2,750 calories a day, I still burned more calories than I consumed in that week and I know that what I was doing is working.
If I would have seen that I had lost no weight (or gained weight!), and that continued for a couple of weeks, then maybe I would drop my daily calories to 2,000, which again might mean that in reality, I might be dropping it to 2,250. Regardless, I would be eating less calories in either count than I was before.
I guess my point is that (although I don’t do it anymore) calories counting based on the information that people are given and regardless of whether it’s accurate or not is a good place for a lot of people to start and then allows them to modify them downwards (or upwards) from there when needed.
You are like a mad scientist! I actually feel stupid most times after reading your posts because I am amazed at how much you know! Your kind of like that little chicken hawk on that old cartoon foghorn leghorn! You may be too young to remember that, but trust me it’s a compliment.
-Kelly
Why do you think that calorie counts are inaccurate? Is it an inaccuracy in the amount of food listed (ounces, grams, whatever,) or the calorie count itself? Do you think that companies are intentionally misleading consumers?
“What happens if you eat less–or more–of the serving size (whatever the hell that means, anyway). Do you just guesstimate?”
Well, you could weigh the food.
@Lance
Too true. Cut out the stuff that doesn’t work and do more of what does.
@Raymond
Make sure you look up Schrödinger’s cat. I think you’ll find this stuff is fascinating!
@Mike
I’d agree that anyone making the decision to start counting calories is obviously very serious and and on the right track. Perhaps the example you gave is an example of how counting calories can be useful, but it is essentially acting as a “MacGuffin” to keep them going rather than giving them accurate feedback. If that works, awesome! But I can think of at least a dozen things that are a better and more efficient use of willpower than counting all them little things. 🙂
@Kelly
I grew up watching Looney Tunes all the time! I figure if I can educate and entertain at the same time, I’ve done my job!
@Jordan
Well, I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I’m sure the food companies know damned well that the USDA only requires that calorie counts be accurate within 20% and that people want to buy foods that have big “Low Calorie!” claims plastered on them. I sympathize with their reasoning 100%, but it leaves the consumer in a tight spot.
I linked to the study in the article if you’d like to read more.
As far as weighing the food is concerned–yeah, you could hypothetically do it, but you encounter the same problems with inaccuracy. I used to work in the QC laboratory of a pharmaceutical company (an industry that must adhere to very strict standards of precision and accuracy) and I can tell you that you couldn’t even find a balance accurate to 0.38% in there–the amount necessary for a 2,500 kcal/day counter to gain less than a pound of fat per year.
The fixation on particular diets is misguided. It’s not really the approach that matters, it’s the person. (Other than obviously stupid fad diets, like the Cabbage Diet or Grapefruit Diet or whatever.) Someone who brings passion, commitment, discipline, honesty, etc., to the process is going to be successful. They are going to figure it out eventually. And someone who lacks those qualities is going to be unsuccessful regardless of what approach they decide to use. One can fail on *any* approach.
Let’s face it, all diets require some sort of sacrifice, whether it’s the type, quantity, or quality of food that one consumes. If you can’t hang in there and weather the rough spots, you’re going to fail whether you’re calorie counting, eating Paleo, or whatever else. Personally, I’ve succeeded and failed on a few different approaches, including low carb and low cal, so I know this from personal experience.
As far as calorie counting goes, I don’t count calories regularly. I have done it on a temporary basis, as an experiment. I may try again someday if I feel like it, but I’m not attached to the idea. So I’m not a “dieter” defending his particular diet. Honestly, it would probably be a bit of a pain in the ass over the long haul! lol.
But there are certainly worse things one could do than counting what actually matters, calories, rather than what doesn’t matter, like carbs or fat grams. There’s so much pseudoscience, hysteria, and fearmongering out there, so calorie counting, at the very least, brings the discussion back to something with a scientific underpinning. That’s a lot more than I can say for most dietary approaches.
And even if someone doesn’t count calories, I would still recommend weighing food just so you can see what a real portion looks like. Not all the time, just to get an idea of actual serving sizes. I bought a digital food scale about a month ago and I love it! It’s very informative. A lot of people would be shocked by how small serving sizes can be. I bet there are many people who are eating two or three times the serving size without realizing it.
Darrin,
I agree that trying to count the exact amount of calories you take in to the integer is a fruitless exercise because it’s too difficult to measure down to that level with any accuracy. I do find it useful to “ballpark” estimate my intake, though. I’ve recorded everything I’ve eaten for over a year now and estimated my weekly calorie intake and it’s helped me lose or maintain weight pretty much at will without having my weight creep up uncontrollably like it has in the past.
I just try to be overly conservative. If I think I should be eating about X calories per week to maintain my weight through BMR alone, I shoot for 20% lower than that just to be safe. This cushion I give myself doesn’t even take into account any type of exercise I’m doing, so with exercise, I know I’m almost certainly running a calorie deficit even if I’m grossly underestimating my calories. I guess I just don’t like to leave things to chance.
Alykhan
@Jordan
Yeah, I’m definitely with Matt Stone when it comes to dieting. Specifically: don’t do it! At least, don’t do it the way most people do it (using willpower to induce starvation, losing weight in the short-term, but gaining it back and some in the long-term.)
The closest thing to a “diet” I’d ever suggest is one with as much unrefined food as possible (specifically meat, vegetables, fruit, animal fat, and possibly dairy) and as little unprocessed food as possible (specifically sugar, flour, vegetable oil, and soy products.)
But this is coming from a guy who ate a burger, fries, and almost half a pizza for dinner last night, so there’s room for debauchery as well, haha.
This type of diet fills you up on a calorie-for-calorie basis, and doesn’t lead to the insulin- and leptin-resistances that are the real cause of obesity.
As for “serving sizes,” well, that’s another wonder cooked up by the USDA, the same people responsible for the food pyramid, so I bet you can guess how I feel about them! 🙂
@Alykhan
Yeah, I’ll admit that I like to use FitDay from time to time to get a ballpark figure of my daily intake, but it’s more from a “descriptive” viewpoint than a “prescriptive” one. i.e. I don’t freak out if I ate more than 3,500 kcal in a day. Just interesting to see where I’m at. Though I’d never use it to say, okay I need to stop eating today ‘cuz I’ve already had XXXXX cal.
I knew I shouldn’t have had those two extra peanuts yesterday! Seriously though, way to put the numbers out there. Nowadays, I find calorie counting of limited use because of all the problems you outlined above. However, there are points in time where I like to count just to get a ballpark estimate of how much I eat in a given day.
If one eats a surplus of calories from whole foods, one will still gain weight. The danger of eating refined foods is that they taste really good and are high in calories. So eating less of them, or eliminating them completely, means cutting an enormous amount of calories from one’s diet. That’s all it is. No magic required.
That’s why I lost weight on a low carb diet years ago, by eliminating those foods. And that’s how I lost weight on a low cal diet more recently, by reducing the portions of those foods.
A diet doesn’t necessarily mean “inducing starvation.” That’s melodramatic. That sort of language is used to intentionally manipulate people’s emotions, I believe. That’s the whole problem with the diet/ fitness/ health community. It’s funny that you bring up Matt Stone, because he’s the epitome of that approach. We need less fear, more facts.
Yes, plateaus and weight regain are a huge problem. But that’s not starvation. I believe it’s a behavioral issue more than a physiological issue. I’m fully convinced that I haven’t plateaued and regained because of any physiological reason. It’s clear to me that there are behavioral or perhaps psychological issues that are holding me back. If I don’t address and correct this, no dietary approach will be effective.
If I tried Paleo, without addressing the behavorial/ psychological component, I know I would fail. There’s no way I would stick with it. No way. If I’m having trouble sticking with much easier diets, there’s no way I could stick to a strict, difficult regimen like Paleo. No way.
It’s good that there’s room for debauchery on your diet. I think that’s psychologically healthy. But for someone else, that could be a a disaster. A meal like that could lead to a vicious downward spiral for some people, that could last for days or weeks. So again, it’s the person, not the diet.
So serving sizes are a conspiracy, as well? lol! Well, I’ll just say that’s it’s good for people to know the actual amount of food that they’re eating. If someone is eating two cups of ice cream, for example, it would be a good thing for them to know that they’re eating four servings. They can eat as much as they want (after all, who eats a measly half cup of ice cream?) but they should know what they’re doing.
@Dave
Haha. Yeah, as I mentioned to Alykhan, I like to get some ballpark ideas of how much I’m eating from time to time. But more to get an idea of where I’m at than to prescribe how much to eat.
@Jordan
I hear what you’re saying, my man. Unfortunately, the statement that “to lose weight, one must eat less and exercise more” is, in fact, a tautology. It’s no more useful than saying that “to become a millionaire, your assets minus your debts must be equal to or greater than $1 million.” One plus one does indeed make two. But that tells you precisely nothing about HOW to get there.
The real solutions I’m interested in are those that will help guys reach their health and fitness goals as efficiently as possible (meaning minimal investment of time, money, and energy). I understand that “in theory” one can stuff as much food in their maw as they have time in the day, but in practice, people get full. And not all foods fill you up the same on a calorie-for-calorie basis.
I have addressed most of your concerns in previous posts, which I’ll link to for your convenience:
# The Satiety Index – Why Food Quality Matters
# Why “Eat Less, Exercise More” Doesn’t Work
# Why Don’t Wild Animals Get Fat?
# Debunking the Thrifty Gene
# The Dark Secrets Behind “Calories In – Calories Out”
# Dude, Where’s My Willpower?
# How to Automate Your Diet for Painless Fat Loss and Superior Health
A key point of my philosophy is that you must TAKE ACTION rather than just debate theory. I’ll be running a couple of experiments soon that you might find interesting and posting my results here. Anyhow, I’d love for you to try my crazy ideas out for 28 days and report back with the results. No matter how assertive I may seem in writing, I’m always seeking cognitive dissonance and feedback on the actions and results of others! 🙂 Send me an email if interested.
Darrin, I guess my point is that with a lot of other things, having a baseline is important. You go to the doctor and get your bloodwork checked. Who knows what those number actually mean, but, you know what you want to keep them between, and you know what yours is. So you have something to work with. Same with things like when starting off running. You know how fast you ran 1.5 miles to start. You know that you get better compared to that intial baseline when it doesn’t take you as long.
Since 66% of Americans are overweight or obese, counting calories for a beginner in this whole health and fitness journey can be a good start to learn about the foods they eat, what’s high in calories, what’s low, what foods contain carbs, protein, and fat. I think it can be a very good educational tool. But at the same time, I see how as you continue on that path for a number of years, the counting of calories may not be needed, based on what you’ve learned from doing it.
“One plus one does indeed make two. But that tells you precisely nothing about HOW to get there.”
We’re in total agreement there! To lose weight, one needs a calorie deficit, but that’s boring. (Well, there are probably some people who need to hear that, but I’d like to think that most of us know that already.) The “how” is much more interesting than the “why.”
I’ve been trying a lot of different strategies lately to try to help myself to eat less. Can’t stick to any of them. Ultimately, I’ve learned that I have to work on some things *before* a strategy can work. Maybe a certain approach (IF, Paleo, whole foods, whatever) can be beneficial after that work is done, but you have to be able to stick to it first, and I don’t believe there’s any silver bullet for that. If I tried Paleo tomorrow, I can guarantee you I’d be off the wagon by Friday night.
So that’s just something I need to resolve first. And I imagine that there are a lot of other people out there with similar problems, which is why the low fat fad came and went, why the low carb fad came and went, and people are still as fat as ever!
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