Is Calorie Counting a Good Way to Lose Weight?
So you’ve decided that enough is enough and it’s time to start getting healthy and losing some weight. That’s great! So now that you have your workout going on, it’s time to tackle the nutritional side of things. Which is also great! But, unfortunately, with all of the circulating information about the best way to lose weight or the fastest way to lose weight through nutritional modification, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated. Which also just happens to be the #1 reason why people give up. So here are the facts about one of the most utilized methods for modifying your diet, calorie counting.
Calorie counting is ideal if you’re just starting out on your weight loss journey. It’s a great way to monitor how many calories you are consuming on a daily basis, which can then be modified to fit your weight loss program. It’s simple and easy to do, and it will help you to lose weight fast. It will be both fat and muscle that you’re losing, but the weight will drop. With that in mind, there are also many long term dangers that are also associated with calorie counting.
While counting calories will help you restrict the amount of food you consume, depending upon what that food is, the amount of calories it contains can be misleading. For example, say you have an avocado (a dietary super-food) and a handful of nuts for an afternoon snack. While this sounds like a healthy little snack, between the calorie-dense avocado and the calorie packed nuts, you just consumed about 600-800 calories. Over half your daily allotment if you’re following a 1200 calorie per day meal plan.
On the other hand, let’s go in the other direction and say that we’re eating 100 calorie snack packs and other ‘low calorie’ and/or ‘low-fat and fat-free’ foods. This is where it gets very misleading. The low fat and low calorie craze makes things way worse. You see, when you take the fat out of something to make it ‘healthy’, you take out what gives it flavor as well. So how can the ‘diet’ version of something taste the same as the regular version? Food manufacturers replace the fat they took out of the food with man-made sugars which end up being stored as fat by the body anyways. That’s why when the whole obesity epidemic started in the mid 90’s, it has a direct correlation to when the low-fat/non-fat craze hit the scene around the same time.
What am I supposed to do then? Well, don’t worry; the best things you can do to maximize your calorie counting results is to keep it simple. Eat ‘real’ food, оne ingredient foods such as fruits, vegetables, organic meats, etc. So eat apples, oranges, broccoli, kale, chicken, beef, etc. The fewer ingredients in the food, the better.
All in all there is no real ‘holy grail’ for weight loss. You simply need to try things and see what works for you. If counting calories is the route you decide to go for your weight loss goals, then be sure to keep it simple with the foods you are eating and try not to get sucked in to all of the marketing hype that food industries are claiming.
About the Author:
Matt Johnson is the founder of the Awesome Abs Challenge, which focuses on helping people to lose weight, burn fat and achieve the lean, toned body that they deserve. If you want better weight loss results faster, download his Diet and Fat Loss Secret Revealed FREE Report and learn how to boost your metabolism while taking your weight loss to a whole new level.