
Counting Calories For Weight Loss
28 February 2020
Counting Calories has been a hotly debated topic for a long time with regards to how effective it is at aiding in weight loss. Whilst some experts swear by the method as a successful means of losing weight with relative ease, others have called out counting calories to lose weight as ineffective.
There are many misconceptions and myths surrounding counting calories. Some people believe that it’s just a case of swapping out certain food groups without any drawbacks. Others have questioned whether or not you can actually lose weight by counting calories, or whether or not the effects of doing so are just limited to certain individuals.
Let us delve into a few basic facts concerning counting calories for weight loss and deliver our verdict on whether or not we think it’s worth doing.
Does Counting Calories Actually Help You Lose Weight?
There are many misconceptions concerning calorie counting and the effect it can have on your ability to lose weight. The general consensus is that if you consume more calories than you burn off, this will cause you to gain weight noticeably. It is commonly accepted that any weight loss program that includes calorie counting will lead to a further reduction in weight. So by counting the number of calories you ingest daily and cutting them down where necessary, this will lead to a significant weight loss. But there is considerable debate as to just how effective calorie counting really is, just as much as dieting vs a total lifestyle change. Some studies have shown that calorie counting programs alone can result in weight losses of up to 7lb (3.3kg). Whilst there will be some who look at this and think they have found a relatively simple way to reduce their weight, caution should still be advised.Counting Calories Must Be Done Carefully
If you go overboard on calorie counting to lose weight fast, either as a sole means of losing weight or in conjunction with an exercise or weight loss program, you might be putting your health at risk. Calorie counting is not a one way ticket to weight loss, and you need to think about what else you might be taking out of your body as part of the process. There are thousands of “low-calorie” diet programs out there. Whilst they will undoubtedly lead to weight loss if followed correctly, but starvation or fasting based diet methods can lead to problems with your diet. Your body is there to protect you, so if it notices you aren’t eating as much as normal, it will begin to stockpile calories for later use. This might cause your weight to yoyo significantly up and down. You may even find yourself overeating at times to compensate for the calorie deficiency you’re now suffering from. It should go without saying that counting calories to lose weight fast by dieting in this manner, whilst following a high-intensity workout or weight loss program, is not advisable.How Calories Actually Work
A calorie is defined as the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of a single gram of water by 1°C. As such, calories are often described as both the amount of energy your body gets from eating and drinking different foods and beverages, and the amount that your body needs to perform certain physical tasks.We need to ingest a certain amount of relative calories to the amount of energy our bodies expend each day.There are typically, 4 calories in each gram of both Protein and Carbohydrates, whilst fats contain more than double that amount at 9 calories per gram. Finding a happy medium between these is the trick to having a balanced diet and not having to resort to calorie cutting to be on top of your weight. Obviously, the more exercise you do the more calories your body will require to keep up. Even just half an hour spent running on a treadmill can burn up to 300,000 calories. If you’re trying to diet or count calories and avoid eating as much fatty or carb-loaded foods as possible, then you might have an interesting challenge ahead of you trying to maintain this. For instance, there are 25,000 calories in the common carrot. If you were following a strict plant-based diet, then you would need to eat 12 carrots or the equivalent to this to replace the output amount of energy required for this exercise. This might sound simple enough, but we can’t just eat carrots to replace the amount of calories we burn from exercising.