Why You Should Stop Counting Calories to Lose Weight

calorie counting doesn't work or does it counting and restricting the number of calories you eat is a tried and tested method that people use to lose weight many Fitness influencers swear by it but many scientists don't so I'm going to explain the science as to why it doesn't work but plot twist also explain why it does work before we go any further I'm making this video today because in a video on way loss I did in January I touched on this topic and I asked you to comment and subscribe if this is something you wanted

to see turned out a lot of you did and so here it is we aim to make the videos that you want so if you appreciate this kind of stuff and you haven't yet subscribed please do because it really helps so calorie counting Fitness influencers and internet charlatans tend to love it whereas scientists tend to hate it why well on the surface it kind of makes sense and you'll often hear people saying look bro it's simple energy in equals energy out the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy in an isolated system

remains constant over time mathematically we can write this out as the total energy at time two minus the total energy at time one divided by the change in time between the two equals zero so if you burn more than you take in you will lose weight now this is true it's Newtonian physics the universe will wouldn't exist without it however there are some problems with this gross oversimplification and I will explain that but first we need a quick refresher on what a calorie actually is a calorie is defined as the energy required to raise the

temperature of 1 cm cubed of Water by 1° C by weighing and burning the food these experiments that burnt food were some basic science known as bomb calorimetry performed in the late 1800s so as to why calorie counting doesn't work well reason one your body is not a bomb calorimeter when you eat food it doesn't incinerate it and therefore it doesn't necessarily extract all of the nutrients from it my favorite example of this sweet corn now uh well feel free to join in at home and uh conduct your own experiment and then um well observe

the results and people respond to different foods differently for example most Europeans struggle to digest and extract nutrients from seaweed whereas Most Japanese people tend to have a genetic adaptation which allows them to do exactly that they can eat as much seaweed as they like another great example is nuts versus nut butter now in Nut Butter the nuts have been Blended so hard that the individual cell walls contained within the nuts have broken down and then released the oil or fat that's contained within each nut cell and that's what gives Nut Butter it's yummy and

creamy texture as opposed to it being just a well a Nutty powder however when you eat nuts your body isn't actually able to break down the cell walls of every single nut that you eat and thus release the fat contained within it we know this because scientists have analyzed the feal matter from people whom they fed nuts thus doing this so that you don't have to thanks science if you were tracking the calories of 100 G of nuts it registers roughly the same if it's 100 G of nut butter versus 100 G of raw nuts

and this isn't the case and this is all because of the Matrix no not not that one uh the food matrix it's just a fancy and misleading way of describing the structure of food that that uh well makes it sound far more exciting than what it actually is reason two is that irrespective of how your body individually responds to food it's very difficult to accurately measure the calories of food that you're just eating before you've even tried to digest them so for example I mean food labels only have to be 20% accurate by law which

means that this tasty 100 calorie snack might actually be 120 calories homemade meals or or dishes prepared in restaurants or cafes often become a complete guessing game it's impossible to accurately measure and control portion sizes and the actual calories contained within a meal can vary by over 50% even professional dietitians struggle to measure their intakes from things like this with Precision meticulously weighing every single little gram that you eat and then logging it into your favorite calorie tracking app is just not a way to live your life I've known people who turn down hanging out

with friends and social occasions because they become anxious at the fact that they're not going to be able to control this element of their lives and the things that they're potentially going to be putting in their mouths what are you doing and then there's the impact of cooking food labels don't take this into account a raw stick of celery has six calories [Music] but once cooked it has six times that 36 calories and across the board cooking generally tends to alter the caloric content of food meaning that it's very easy to miscalculate and overc consume

ah it's really hot and disgusting reason three is the amount of calories that your body burns on a daily basis varies a lot and is also difficult to measure accurately now the go-to figures are 22,000 calories for men and 2,000 calories for women and while some calculators do account and adjust for your height weight and age this is still a gross oversimplification and 80 kg filipo Ghana is going to burn significantly more calories than 58 kgam yonas finger the amount you move has a huge impact and your basil metabolic rate varies from day today for

example if you're slightly ill and your body temperature is Just5 of a degree higher than normal you're probably burning an extra 200 calories a day your power meter can accurately measure the amount of work done while riding but it's not always clear how much of that was used burning fat versus how much of that was used burning glycogen and different Power meters can also vary in their accuracy too reason for is that Counting calories creates the perception that 1,000 calories of Mars Bars is equal to 1,000 calories of broccoli now big ultr processed food corporations

love people to think this but it's clearly ridiculous this contains next to no beneficial micronutrients has had the fiber stripped out of it contains loads of refined sugar and fat this is an extreme example but you get the point the reality is that it's much harder to overeat Whole Foods whereas ultr processed foods tend to be much more readily absorbed and also when you eat them are more likely to spike your blood sugar a large part of this is is probably because they've had most of their fiber content stripped out and Studies have shown that

when matched for macros groups that eat a diet of ultra processed food versus groups of people that eat a diet of less processed Whole Foods tend to overc consume by 500 calories a day micronutrients and fiber just help you be more healthy and irrespective of your weight goals they're just something that you should consume in order to be healthier whereas ultra-processed Foods tend to be far more readily absorbed into the body and don't contain that stuff but you should also pay attention to macronutrients because they matter too and there is something to be said for

the thermic effect to food and something that's high in fiber or high in protein requires more energy to break down than just a refined carbohydrate so calorie counting is a complete waste of time or is it well no actually it's not complete waste of time the key thing to understand is that in theory it's definitely possible that we could perform more accurate and precise measurements of energy in energy out calculations for example a 100 years ago we couldn't accurately measure the atomic radius of a uranium atom whereas well now we can vizmo Lisa bike the

most successful cycling team in the world right now are a team whose success is largely down to how lean their Riders can be and they've used calorie counting to improve the Riders body composition although what they're doing is a more sophisticated version of calorie counting that actually employs the use of a machine learning algorithm that can far more accurately predict the caloric demands of the Riders for their training and racing and it actually is able to get more accurate over time the more they use it and the more data they give it this isn't a

mass Market thing and it's nowhere near as sophisticated as what's theoretically possible but it does show that you know especially if things get even more accurate that measuring energy in versus energy out in a more accurate way is a really useful tool so the other reason why it's useful is through calorie coun and you're effectively keeping a food diary and this is a really useful way of making you take notice of what you're actually eating and holding yourself accountable for it this sounds obvious but people often don't realize that they're snacking too much or eating

too much fat and simply by keeping a record of what you're actually stuffing in your mouth you'll probably be surprised at how the little things just add up that full pack of Jaffer cakes on the sofa after your training session probably is isn't helping things it can also be useful in making sure you properly fuel your training sessions and get sufficient protein to recover it sounds simple but the single biggest thing that has helped me improve as a cyclist is making sure that I fuel properly and get enough carbs ahead of hard sessions or races

or events and well my favorite things are pasta porridge and uh and rice I love carbs now here's the thing if you're limiting the amount of ultr processed food that you eat and you're exercising Lots you're getting fitter but you're still putting on fat and getting fatter then it's probably time that you actually make a note of the things that you're eating on a day-to-day basis and maybe just reducing it a bit and you can call this calorie counting that's one of the freedoms that's afforded to you although I prefer to call it keeping a

food diary now another useful thing to do is to periodize your carb hydrate intake ahead of hard training days and sessions make sure you fuel for them and consume more carbohydrate compared to lighter days where you'd aim to just consume less is it possible to eat an almond quason every day and still lose weight yeah thing is there's a big thing in science called efficacy versus Effectiveness what's efficacy versus Effectiveness don't worry I'm going to tell you so efficacy is how well something works in ideal conditions I.E a lab whereas Effectiveness is how well something

works in non ideal conditions the real world now we know that if you counted all of your calories and just ate this then well you'd probably lose weight get leaner be a bit healthier and happier for like a week and then you'd just hit the cookie jar and just binge on the sofa it's therefore far more effective and sustainable to allow yourself to have treats eat out occasionally and enjoy your Food calorie counting is useful in that it can just help you be a bit more mindful about that and just highlight to you things that

are particularly energy dense so for example this tasty ma bar contains 174 calories allegedly and uh well 6.3 G of fat allegedly but um yeah I think one of them okay all or maybe not okay calorie counting can lead to disordered eating but the same can be said of any diet method including the use of continual glucose monitors the trick is to live your life make sustainable changes and be consistent if a May asks you for a beer or friends invite you for dinner then go Life's too short and it's more important seeing your friends

than it is you know meeting your calorie Target for the day or your macronutrient goal food should be enjoyed and not counted here's my friend friend cheers is that it can I go now yes pleas everyone else if you want if you if you've enjoyed this and you want to know more about food then uh we've got another video here bye