Why Counting Calories Isn’t Enough for a Healthy Diet
Many of us make the weight loss diets with healthy diets. The two are NOT the same thing, and in fact, they are often actually polar opposites. If losing weight forces you to consume fewer vegetables and fruits, then of course this will actually make you less healthy. Not more fit!
What’s more, is that counting calories alone won’t necessarily help you to lose weight as efficiently as possible either.
Here’s why.
The Problem With Just Counting Calories
In theory, eating fewer calories than you burn will lead to weight loss. Many people quote the ‘first law of thermodynamics’ here, stating that energy can’t be destroyed so it will get stored as fat unless you burn it off.
But that’s ignoring some of the more subtle aspects of weight gain and weight loss. It doesn’t actually matter how many calories you eat for instance, so much as it matters how many calories make it into your blood stream.
Likewise, things like digestion and cold showers can cause you to burn extra calories and these don’t factor into the IIFYM philosophy (If It Fits Your Macros meaning that it doesn’t push you over your calorie limits for any foodgroups).’ Neither does the fact that different calories are absorbed at different rates, or that they are used differently depending on when you consume them (meal timing is a whole thing). It doesn’t consider the role of hunger either, or how certain foods can stimulate or suppress ghrelin and thus appetite.
Likewise, taking the approach that you can eat whatever you like to lose weight will also bring many problems. The biggest of these problems is that it means you literally could lose weight on a diet of just donuts…. just eat five donuts a day and no more! But should you? No: you’d probably die. Likewise you could survive on just alcohol by this logic. IIFYM doesn’t prevent you from getting a nutritious diet, it just simply doesn’t mention it whatsoever. And that’s dangerous for someone who is just getting into dieting, and who loves donuts. It’s also surprising bearing in mind that this came from a bodybuilding website, where getting the right micronutrients can make all the difference to testosterone production.
By thinking about where you are getting your calories from, you look after your health, but you also accelerate your weight loss and make the whole thing a lot easier.
Not to mention, counting calories is miserable as well as being highly inaccurate with the best will in the world (e.g. two apples do not contain the same number of calories).
