Why you should not count calories? Told by a nutritionist

Most people have been led to believe that weight loss is “a matter of math.” Cut back on calories and you’ll soon lose weight. But this 10-year-old strategy is actually wrong. The truth is that even careful calorie counts don’t always produce the same results. How your body burns energy depends on a number of factors: the type of food you eat, your metabolism, and even the type of organisms living in your gut. You can eat the exact same amount of calories as someone else, but still have very different results when it comes to weight.

Nutrition expert and founder of the healthy meal delivery service GetVegetable

The energy we get from food is calories. It is imperative that we utilize this energy, i.e. spend calories, to maintain a balance between their intake and expenditure. If the balance is disturbed, it will lead to excess weight gain.

The caloric content of food changes when it is cooked

During cooking, frying or stewing, the calorie content of a dish will change. Factors that generally affect this indicator are quite a lot. Including growing conditions and even the country where it grows. In fact, the product can change its calorie content “on the fly”, and it is impossible to keep up with the exact figure.

Constant counting can be annoying

You constantly have to be on guard against accidentally eating too much. It can be disruptive and keep you on edge. And that’s not good for anyone.

Same calorie foods – different quality foods

For example, you decide to keep within 1500 calories, but it can include: sweet soda, sweet cake, fruit and fish. At the same time, 2500 calories can include avocado, salmon, pasta from whole-grain flour. And the second option will be much healthier.

Instead of counting calories, there are much more effective ways to control weight loss. First of all, you need to exclude from the diet fast food, products with harmful chemical additives and give preference to natural products without preservatives. When cooking, try to stew, bake or steam more often. This is not as harmful as pan-frying or deep-frying.

It’s also worth controlling your meal times, keeping active, getting more exercise, and getting plenty of rest and sleep.

What is LCHF and how do I switch to it?

One alternative to calorie counting is LCHF (Low Carb High Fat), a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. This system is based on the rule of thumb: eat as many foods with healthy fats, proteins, dietary fiber, but as little starch and sugar as possible.

Back in the early 2000s in Sweden, nutritionists recognized that fats are no more dangerous than carbohydrates, and non-fat foods are healthy. Then they invented a new “style of eating” – LCHF. Swedish scientists became more active in saying that natural fats are not as harmful as they seem, while sugar is much more dangerous than previously thought.

The LCHF diet system allows you to eat without restriction such foods as meat, fish, eggs, vegetables and mushrooms, dairy products, nuts and berries. It is worth excluding sweet and energy drinks, breakfast cereals and muesli, any sweeteners, bread, pasta, rice and chips from the diet. It is also recommended to drink as much water and natural tea as possible.