Stop Counting Calories. Here's What To Do Instead.

Stop counting calories! This is one of the first things I tell people when they come to me for help with their eating habits.

Of course, that's hard advice for many people to follow. We're so conditioned to focus on calories.

I hear calorie talk all the time: “I’m staying under 1500 calories”. “I found this great snack, just 150 calories!” “It’s not that bad for me, it’s only 100 calories!”

This type of thinking doesn’t promote good health, or even support long-term, sustainable weight loss (if that's your goal). Calories don’t signify “good” or “bad” food.

A food that’s low in calories isn’t necessarily healthy and won’t necessarily help you lose weight, and a food that’s high in calories isn’t necessarily unhealthy.

Calories are only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to our food, and they are not even the most important piece. When your focus is only on counting (and limiting) calories, you end up feeling restricted, deprived, hungry, and stressed.

The act of eating is so much more than a math equation, and food should make you feel good and support your health and well-being. That alone is reason enough to try a different way.

Even worse, the very theory of calorie counting has serious problems. It’s not nearly as simple and fool-proof as you've been led to believe.

Why You Should Stop Counting Calories:Calorie Counting is Very Inaccurate

When you enter a food into a calorie counting app, it asks you how much you ate. Do you know exactly how much you ate for lunch today? Was it a cup of rice? Half a cup? How many grams was that steak? Did you eat a “small” sweet potato, or a “medium” one?

To get an accurate idea of how much you’re eating, you would need to weigh and measure your food. In my experience, the vast majority of people don’t do that when they’re counting calories. They just take a guess, and they’re often wrong.

People are really bad at estimating their food intake. In fact, studies have found that people drastically underestimate how many calories they take in, often by 30% or more.

Even if you are able to track exactly how much of each food you eat, and exactly how it was prepared, your calorie numbers are still probably not accurate. That’s because food labels aren’t accurate.

The FDA allows the calorie content on food labels to be off by up to 20%. That means that if a food says on the label that it contains 200 calories, it could actually have anywhere between 160 and 240 calories.

Why spend your valuable time, effort, and energy thinking about calorie numbers when they’re probably wrong anyway?

You Don’t Control What Your Body Does With the Calories You Eat

All calories are not created equal. Some people will argue that “a calorie is a calorie”, and it doesn’t matter where those calories come from.

Not true.

You could eat the same amount of calories in cookies and carrots, and I think it’s pretty obvious that those two foods would do very different things to your body.

First, foods are digested and absorbed differently. The way a food is digested depends on what it’s made of and how it’s cooked, the amount and type of processing it has gone through, how much fiber it has, and other factors.

That means that even if you know exactly how many calories were in the food when it went into your mouth, you can’t really know how many of those calories will be digested and absorbed into your body.

Once calories are absorbed, your body needs to do something with them. Will those calories be put to use, or will they be stored away?

What happens to your appetite and energy levels after the meal, and how does that affect how much you eat in your next meal? It all depends on your hormones, genetics, the bacteria in your gut, and many other individual traits.

As you can see, it’s much more complicated than simply “a calorie is a calorie”.

Calories Are Only One Piece of the Puzzle

What is a calorie, anyway? It’s a unit of energy. When your body breaks down food, it takes that energy and uses it (or at least some of it) as a fuel. That fuel allows you to move your muscles, keep your heart beating, your lungs pumping, your brain working, and powers many of the other processes that keep you alive and functioning. Your body needs calories.

Energy is not the only thing in food, though. Food also has nutrients, which are things like carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber, which your body also needs. Without nutrients, your body will slowly break down.

You might just feel sluggish, have minor illnesses, pain and discomfort, have trouble thinking clearly or remembering things, or you could develop more serious issues like heart disease, diabetes, and cancers.

High quality foods have a lot of nutrients to go along with their calories. That’s where your focus should be: stop counting calories and start eating high quality, nutrient-dense foods as much as possible.

What Should You Do When You Stop Counting Calories

Like many aspects health and fitness, the most powerful thing you can do is change your mindset about food.

Focus on nutrients, not calories.

Instead of thinking about how many calories are in a food, think about it in terms of what it can do for your body. Will this food make me feel satisfied and energetic? Does it have fiber, does it have the vitamins and minerals I need? Will it contribute to my overall health?

Set nutrient goals.

There’s something appealing about calorie-counting: it gives you a sense of control. Healthy eating isn’t easy, and the idea of putting a number on something to determine whether you’re doing it right can be helpful. You can still do that when you focus on nutrients.

Stop counting calories and set yourself a nutrient or whole-food goal instead. There are a lot of different ways you could do this.

I often recommend that clients set a goal of eating a certain amount of vegetables, fruits, or whole grains each day. For example, you could have a daily goal of eating 5 servings of vegetables and 2 servings of whole grains.

Think about eating more, not less.

When your goal is to eat enough high quality, nutrient-dense foods, there’s just less room for heavily processed, high-calorie foods. Your healthy foods replace them. This simple mindset shift can make all the difference.

You’re not restricting yourself or giving something up, you’re eating more healthy foods, and as an added bonus you're feeling better and taking in fewer calories.

That’s the beauty of this mindset shift – while you’re focusing on nourishing your body, you will also be eating less calories without even trying.

Be flexible.

Finally, it’s ok to eat foods just for the pleasure of eating them, even if they’re not healthy. Everything you eat is a choice. Try to make choices that support your health and your goals most of the time, but allow yourself the freedom and flexibility to make other choices, too.

If you really feel like that chocolate bar, go ahead and have it. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re not being “bad” or “ruining” your eating for the day.

Recognize that you are choosing to eat it because you want to, and you don’t need to make excuses or try to justify that choice.

Healthy eating is a long-term commitment, and you’re more likely to stick with it if you know that you’re free to eat whatever you want. As you feel the benefits of eating more nutrient-dense foods, though, you’ll find that what you want to eat, most of the time, are foods that support your body.

If You Need Help

Here are a couple of my FREE resources to help you if you have healthy eating goals:

• My Guide to Healthy Eating eBook to help you discover what a healthy eating pattern really looks like.

• My Goal-Setting eBook to help you set goals the right way so you can start off on the right foot.