Myths & Facts
10 Reasons Why Calorie Counter Method For Weight Loss Doesn’t Work!
May
“It’s all about how low your number is on the calorie counter” is one of the biggest lies that diet and food industry has told you for weight loss.
You go to any dietitian and she will give you a calorie counter to show you how to restrict your diet in order to gain minimum calories.
If you want to lose weight moderately, it is a 1500 calories nutrition chart; if you want to lose weight fast, it is a 1200 calories nutrition chart and if you want to vanish, then it is an 800 calories nutrition chart. Unfortunately, it is a very wrong way of eating food.
Table of Contents:
- The Calorie counter and weight loss
- Calorie counter and diet tracker concept
- A Calorie counter and diet tracker doesn’t because
- Explanation behind the number of calories a day to lose weight
So if you’re trying to lose weight without compromising your health, stop depending on calorie counters.
The biggest mantra of the weight loss industry is a faulty model that may lead to health problems!
Instead of believing in calorie counting, you can ask a nutritionist who will guide and advise you which foods to eat which consist of vitamins and minerals.
You can always drop by to any of the Possible Centres and ask our Nutrition experts themselves. All for FREE! Just click and get started!
Calorie counter and weight loss
How many calories required to lose weight is the most non-important question for weight loss.
You must be believing the calorie calculator all this while and what I am going to state here might not seem believable but, are these numbers reliable and should you base your diet depending on them?
Well, the truth is counting calories is getting you nowhere close to healthy weight loss. In the calorie view, apple has more calories than cola.
But that doesn’t make cola any healthier, right? Calories simply equate every food without considering the vitamins and minerals.
Watch the video given below that will point you out the bizarreness of calorie counting!
Calorie counter and diet tracker concept
So, how many calories required to lose weight? 50, 100, 1000???
Calories model say you can lose weight by burning more calories than what you are consuming. If you are consuming 1500 calories and you are burning 2000 calories, you will lose 500 calories every day. And 1 kg is equivalent to 7500 calories, so in 15 days, you will lose 1 kg.
I am 72 kgs, which is 5.4 lakh calories. If I exercise daily and eat a little less and create a calorie deficit diet of 500 calories every day, then I will need just 3 years to reach 0 kg of body weight!!!!
Even if I go for a modest 250 calories deficit diet every day, I will vanish in 6 years. Does a weight loss till 0kg make any sense? At least not to me. That is, there must be something fishy in the calorie model. (1)
Calorie counter and diet tracker doesn’t because
1. The number of calories doesn’t decide the health quotient
If you think calories in food can help you determine how to lose weight then you, my friend, are wrong!
An apple has more calories than 200 ml of cola. So, if we are to go by calorie model, cola is better than apple. Doesn’t it sound funny?
2. Zero calorie products aren’t always healthy
According to the calorie model, diet cola is the best product in the world, as it has 0 calories, and so are artificial sweeteners. But both are extremely harmful.
It can only cause deadly diseases (including cancer) and it is not great for weight loss either. Research shows, if you want to lose weight, regular cola is better than diet cola.
3. Zero calorie products have additives too
Salt and MSG have 0 calories. And so do preservatives, harmful additives. So, calories tracking model allows you to have all these harmful things in unlimited quantity. Ridiculous!
4. Calorie model does not give importance to time
According to the model, Paratha, whether eaten during the day or at night, will produce same calories. But talk to a nutrition expert and you would know that the timing plays a big role.
And as you are active throughout the day, you can afford to have a heavy breakfast, but your dinner should be light. So calculating calories is not always right!
5. Calorie counter concept does not give any importance to minerals, vitamins, calcium and other nutrients in the food
Are they not important? Is food just about calories and weight loss? Try ignoring these minerals, nutrients for a month and focus just on calories, you will see what harm it can cause to your body.
6. Calorie counter does not differentiate foods
It doesn’t bring out differences between healthy and unhealthy fat; healthy and unhealthy carbs; or between dal and rice.
It does not differentiate between organic and inorganic food or normal and GM food. Eat whatever you want, it does not care.
7. Calorie counter method makes you start looking at foods as enemies
Even healthy foods have calories and calories are not good. But food is not your enemy. Food is nature’s greatest gift to mankind (or any other living organism).
Without food, we cannot survive. Food gives us energy, minerals, vitamins and the fuel to survive. It is sad that we have started seeing food as our enemy, just calories.
8. The calorie counter is a very simplistic approach that is not true
The best thing about the calorie counter concept is that it is the most simple model. Anybody can understand the “Calories In, Calories Out” (2) model.
You can judge any food by just reading the calories on the packet i.e. fewer calories is always better than more calories.
But unfortunately, its simplicity is also its greatest weakness.
The author of “The Gnolls Credo”, J. Stanton is popular for his interesting and detailed blog series ridiculing the calories-in-calories-out model(3).
He writes, “The problem with explaining complicated systems to the layman is this: it’s easy to simplify a concept to the point that it’s no longer true.
The concept of calories, as applied to nutrition, is an oversimplification so extreme as to be untrue in practice.”
9. Our body is not a weight loss lab!
According to Newton’s First Law of Thermodynamics, “in an isolated system energy can neither be created nor destroyed”. (4)
So, in a controlled lab set up, whether you burn 1000 calories from broccoli or 1000 calories from chocolate, it will release the same amount of energy.
But Newton’s law does not apply when food is processed in a living body. In a living body, there are so many factors which determine how food is processed e.g., hormones, enzymes, probiotics, etc.
People who vouch for weight loss using the calorie counter based on science and physics should also remember the second law of thermodynamics.
Nutrition and Metabolism Society founder, Richard Feinman says that “calorie is a calorie” model violates the second law of thermodynamics.
He says, “The second law is a dissipation law [which] says that variation of efficiency for different metabolic pathways is to be expected. Thus, ironically the dictum that a “calorie is a calorie” violates the second law of thermodynamics”
10. Our body reacts differently to different foods!
Show a kid 100 calories of apple and 100 calories of ice-cream and ask him which of the food calories will make him fatter and whether both will have the same effect on the body.
Even a kid with common sense will answer this question rightly, but unfortunately, a lot of experts are propagating the wrong information for weight management.
The calorie counter assumes whether you consume 100 calories of sugar or 100 calories of fibre, it will have the same effect on your body! It is the most absurd thing I have ever heard.
Most of the calories in fibre do not even get absorbed by your body. It just acts as a sponge and passes out of your body along with the stool.
If the body does not break down fibre and absorb it, is that calorie bad for your body and weight reduction?
Explanation behind the number of calories a day to lose weight
Sam Feltham, a weight loss expert and CEO of the very successful “Smash The Fat” franchise, made news when he conducted a random experiment to test the validity of the calorie model.
For 21 days he ate 5,794 calories a day of a high-fat, low-carb diet of natural foods! Mind it, high-fat; every day he ate almost half a kg of fat.
By the conventional theory of calories in calories out model, he should have gained 7.5 kgs in 21 days. But he gained marginally 1.3 kgs.
And he actually lost inches from his waist (approx. 3 cms from waist). He was successful in proving that a calorie is not a calorie. And as per his hypothesis, eating low-carb is key to not gaining weight. (5)
Do you know what are basal calories?Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is an estimate of how many calories your body burns at rest. It indicates the minimum amount of energy needed to keep your body functioning, including breathing and heartbeat. BMR uses up about two-thirds of your daily calories.
Dr. Ludwig and his colleagues, in 2004, published a study in The Lancet, a medical journal, where it is suggested that a poor-quality diet, in spite of having low calories, could make you obese.
The study was on rats, some of them were fed with rapidly digesting (high “glycemic index”) carbohydrate and the rest of the rats ate more calories in the form of slowly digesting carbohydrate.
But the rats who were fed with rapidly digesting carbohydrate gained 71 percent more fat than their counterparts. (6)
Can you at least now seem to be a little sceptical about your calorie counter query? If not, see the stories of successful weight loss without going on a restricted calorie diet.
Also read: Choose the health advantage over price advantage!
This post is very helpful and well written. Explains well what calories are all about by far. I’ve resorted to all sorts of things to try and lose weight and one thing my body reacts to is when I lower my calorie intake. I know one thing for a fact, that is when I’m working in the office behind a screen, I could eat just snacks and I just seem to feel heavier but when working on cars, the scenario seems to be very different. I don’t eat much at my age and I just seem to put on weight when I am not active. Just because of this I have taken up MMA just to burn calories and it seems to be working well but the minute I stop, it just starts to come back.
Hello!
We are glad to know that you have figured out what works for you. When you are going on a reduced-calorie diet, we hope it replenishes your need for other micro and macronutrients.
Additionally, since your weight seems to fluctuate when opting for MMA routine, it could indicate that the calorie approach to diet may not be the right one!
You can consult a registered dietician and get this rectified. Because weight loss should not be like a yo-yo. It should be sustainable! Thanks
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Hi! We thank you for appreciating our job towards this article.Keep following our blog to know more health information.
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Hi Rohit! Thank you for your feedback on this article. Will definitely come up with more such health information. Keep following our blog for the same.