Counting Calories for Weight Loss

Photo by Jennifer Burk

If you’re looking to lose weight, it’s pretty typical to look at the calories. It makes sense, since 3,600 calories equates to 1lb. So if I limit my  diet by 3600 calories a week then I’d lose 1lb a week. It’s basic science, a calorie deficit will force your body to lose weight. This is the typical reason why people look to calorie counting for weight loss.

With that said, when we actually apply this it’s a much different story. According to Zagat, the average new yorker eats 58% of their lunch or dinner out. I’d safely guess that it’s more like 58% of all 3 meals out. And we all know that when you’re not cooking your food, even a “healthy meal” can turn pretty ugly quickly due to butter, oils, sodium, etc…

Should I Count Calories?

Being a personal trainer and dealing with many weight-loss clients in New York City (where food is everything), I’ve found the most effective way to help combat this is to focus on eating the right foods and building healthy habits.

With that said, I’m not a really big fan of calorie trackers for weight-loss clients, since it can quickly become a pain in the butt and overwhelming. Tracking all your calories would mean that each time you sit down and eat, you’ll have to take a picture, send it to your personal trainer, open up your calorie tracking application, look up the calories for each section of your meal, guess the serving size, and so on, EACH time you eat- including snacks. All this time will add up, and time is very precious, especially for us new yorkers where the average commute time is 48min and who knows how long our work day is.

Eating the Right Foods

There was a very popular study that received a lot of attention by Dr. Ludwig, in which he compared x3 diet that consumed the same amount of calories:

• Low-fat and higher carbs: whole grains, fruits, veggies, lean protein.
• Low-glycemic index: few carbs in total (beans, non starchy vegetables, and other minimally processed sources.)
• Atkins- low carb, high in fat and protein

Dr. Ludwigs short research showed that a diet focused on low carb had burned 300 kcals more than a low-fat higher carb diet and 150kcal more than the low glycemic index diet. Why is this important? It’s very important for weight-loss clients and personal trainers because this makes it much easier to diet by focusing on eating the right type of foods and eating reasonable portion sizes.

I know this sounds way too simple but I’m a big believer in the process of habits and simplicity.

Building Habits

In my opinion, building habits is the difference between successfully achieving your weight-loss goal and not. Take for instance calorie tracking, I’d say a majority of fitness and weight-loss clients have downloaded and played around with the calorie tracking app for a few weeks and then never opened it back up. It became too much of a hassle to focus on dieting, exercising, updating workouts and diet, sending pictures to the personal trainer, and so on.

But what if we scaled it back and focused on just one habit every few weeks. In this case let’s say week 1-3, you’re focused on making x1 healthy meal at home every day. I know you’re thinking that’s not much but I’d say that would help you cut around 150-200 kcal a day. This will then equate to a minimum of 3,150kcal a week! Nearly 1b (3,600kcal) just by ONE simple habit. And once you successfully achieved this, you’ll then focus on another fitness habit and so on. By the end of the year you’d have around 26 fitness and diet habits accomplished. So while I’m sure you’d like to go ALL out and do all these “advanced” tactics, sometimes it’s just best to focus on one thing at a time.

With that said, keep in mind that you should never EVER beat yourself up for not accomplishing your habit goals. There will be ups and downs but the key thing is to stay focused on that ONE goal and crush it. It’s also important to note that you don’t have to wait for a Monday, first of the year, first of the month, tomorrow morning, etc… start your goal RIGHT NOW.

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