Personally, I’m not a huge fan of counting calories.
In fact, for 9 out of 10 of my clients, I recommend they don’t count calories because it may lead to a worsened health outcome, like a restrictive state of eating or poorer mental health.
Sometimes, the effort-versus-reward simply isn’t worth it.
That said, there are a few reasons you might choose to track the calories in your food. For example, to make sure you’re eating enough to fuel your body during a particularly active day, or you’re working to meet a fitness performance goal (or complete a polar expedition!).
Importantly, everyone’s body is different, just like everyone’s workout motivation is different, so everyone’s daily energy requirements are different1. (You’ll see I use the word ‘calories’ in this article, but in Australia we measure energy using kilojoules2. One calorie equals 4.2 kilojoules.)
Let’s look at why you might choose to track your daily calories – and then explore why it might not work for you.
Pros of counting calories
- Knowing how many calories are in different foods. Counting calories can help you learn the caloric value of food. For example, knowing that a big bowl of oats with yoghurt, fruit, and nuts has a similar amount of energy to a blueberry muffin from the café next to work might help you choose the more nutrient-rich oats more frequently. Helpfully, packaged foods in Australia are required to list a kilojoule quantity on the nutrition information panel3, so you can start to learn as you browse in the supermarket.
- Eating enough. Many people track calories to eat less, regardless of their goal (such as fat loss, muscle gain, or healthy living). Instead of ‘eating less’, a better goal is ‘eating enough’ – enough to fuel your body and maintain performance and wellbeing. Tracking the calories of each snack or meal every day is one of many ways to make sure you’re hitting your body’s daily energy requirements.
- Eating enough specific macronutrients. Tracking what you eat can help you notice when your protein intake is unusually low, for example, or that your carbohydrate intake drops early in the day, which might lead to overeating later in the day. You don’t need to track calories to see this data, but it can be one way to help you see whether you’re eating enough balanced nutrients and getting enough energy at important times.
- Getting variety. Tracking calories can be a way to increase your overall awareness of the types and amounts of foods you’re getting in your diet.
