Are you a dedicated calorie counter? Do you get excited when your macros align completely together with your every day targets? Does seeing a inexperienced quantity in your calorie price range carry you pleasure?
What in regards to the days that your numbers aren’t fairly proper? Do you get down on your self if you’re slightly off? Does disappointment set in when these inexperienced numbers flip purple?
Calorie counting is frequent. It’s a easy method to managing your every day meals consumption, and one which many select to take. Nevertheless, frequent options aren’t all the time one of the best options.
Whereas calorie counting has its advantages, it additionally has its drawbacks, which is why it’s not the method we take.
Right here at OnPoint Diet, we’ve helped hundreds of individuals drop some weight and enhance their well being with out counting a single calorie.
Now that doesn’t imply we aren’t acutely aware of what we’re taking in and we don’t monitor something. We’ve developed a system that we really feel is way extra profitable, and will help you attain your targets, each short-term and long-term.
On this article, we’ll dive into why we don’t depend energy, together with 4 frequent pitfalls of calorie counting. We’ll additionally clarify our vitamin philosophy and why it may enable you discover lifelong success.
Why We Don’t Depend Energy At OnPoint Diet
Calorie counting is among the most typical approaches to controlling meals consumption and losing weight. Nevertheless, it’s not all the time your best option to achieve your targets.
4 Frequent Pitfalls Of Calorie Counting
1. Amount, Not High quality
Calorie counting solely accounts for the amount of meals you’re consuming.
Whereas how a lot you eat is necessary to steadiness your consumption, it isn’t the one issue to contemplate when striving for optimum well being.
The standard of your food regimen issues, too.
One of the best ways to elucidate that is with an instance. In case your every day calorie purpose is 2000 energy, you possibly can eat these energy in infinite other ways.
- You possibly can select to eat 2000 energy value of cookies and name it a day.
- You possibly can additionally simply eat 2000 energy of broccoli and cauliflower to meet your targets.
- You’ll extra doubtless select to eat a wide range of meals from a wide range of meals teams to hit your 2000-calorie purpose.
Whereas all of those choices obtain the purpose of consuming the “appropriate” variety of energy to your physique, they don’t seem to be all created equal.
The cookies provides you with extra sugar and fats than you want within the day and go away you low on protein, nutritional vitamins, and minerals. The veggies provides you with an abundance of fiber, nutritional vitamins, and minerals, however go away you low on protein and fats.
Merely energy, and even energy and macros doesn’t paint the complete image of what’s wanted to keep up your healthiest physique.
Calorie counting alone ignores each macronutrient and micronutrient consumption.
Calorie and macronutrient counting nonetheless ignores micronutrient consumption, and nutritional vitamins and minerals are important for well being.
2. Practicality
In case you are consuming easy meals and getting ready meals at residence, calorie counting is pretty simple.
You may seek for meals or scan barcodes and know the calorie values inside seconds.
Nevertheless, what occurs at eating places, social gatherings, and holiday meals?
What about when your mother makes your grandma’s selfmade macaroni and cheese that you simply love, however there isn’t a concrete recipe to make use of to calculate the energy?
What do you do when your pals need to cut up appetizers at comfortable hour however you possibly can’t decide your exact parts?
Calorie counting shouldn’t be all the time sensible.
It’s additionally necessary to contemplate what occurs in these conditions:
- Do you give it your finest guess and really feel alright realizing that it’s shut, however not excellent?
- Or do you stress that your numbers aren’t 100% correct?
- Do you think about simply not consuming the meals that you simply don’t know the right way to monitor, even when it feels such as you’re lacking out?
This leads us completely to our subsequent level.
3. Disordered Consuming
It’s possible you’ll hear the time period disordered consuming and assume it sounds slightly bit dramatic to explain the behaviors of many individuals who depend energy. Nevertheless, disordered consuming and calorie counting usually go hand in hand.
So what’s disordered consuming precisely?
Disordered eating describes a spread of irregular consuming behaviors that will or could not warrant a prognosis of a particular consuming dysfunction.
Indicators and Signs of Disordered Consuming:
- Frequent weight-reduction plan
- Anxiousness related to specifics meals or skipping meals
- Continual weight fluctuations
- Inflexible routines surrounding meals and train
- Emotions of guilt and disgrace related to consuming
- Preoccupation with meals, weight, and physique picture
- A sense of lack of management round meals
- Utilizing meals restriction, fasting, train, or purging to make up for “unhealthy selections”
Calorie counting is a type of weight-reduction plan and infrequently causes anxiousness, guilt, and disgrace in case you are not assembly your every day targets.
The routine of monitoring meals so particularly is inflexible and might result in preoccupation with meals, together with continuously enthusiastic about what you’ll eat subsequent and the way it will match into your every day targets.
Nobody is ideal, and anticipating perfection units us up for failure.
Likewise, going over a every day calorie price range usually causes a compulsion to limit your meals consumption to make up for it. Over time, the restriction can result in overeating, binge consuming, and shedding management of meals.
We’re not right here to say that calorie counting will result in disordered consuming or an eating disorder each time. Nevertheless, studies have shown associations between calorie tracker use and consuming issues.
4. Sustainability
The ultimate massive concern with calorie counting is the lack of sustainability.
The purpose that’s motivating you to depend energy is prone to drop some weight. Nevertheless, the unstated a part of that purpose is to maintain the burden off.
That is the place most calorie counters go incorrect.
Calorie counting is normally solely sustainable for a brief time frame. You’ll really feel motivated to make modifications and excited to have a plan. Nevertheless, monitoring each calorie you eat for the remainder of perpetually shouldn’t be sustainable.
This could loop again into the practicality of calorie counting.
Take into consideration holidays and holidays, the basic instances when weight-reduction plan goes out the window. Is it life like so that you can monitor every part you eat (and drink) throughout these instances? I’m undecided about you, but it surely’s not for me!
The opposite a part of this dialogue is the extent of restriction you’re implementing with calorie counting. Typically if you arrange your app to get your every day calorie purpose, the app will put you into a really massive calorie deficit to attempt to drop some weight as shortly as doable. This will likely appear environment friendly however it’s removed from sustainable.
One drawback with too massive of a calorie deficit is that restriction usually results in overeating. In case your every day calorie purpose is so low that you simply really feel, consciously or unconsciously, restricted, your physique will sign your mind to hunt extra meals. This usually results in overeating, which, as mentioned above, generally is a slippery slope into disordered consuming patterns.
The opposite drawback is that weight reduction will inevitably plateau sooner or later in your journey. You’ll cease dropping pounds, and need to make changes. In case your calorie consumption has already been drastically diminished, you don’t have a lot room to make changes to proceed dropping pounds whereas nonetheless consuming sufficient to provide your physique all the vitamins it wants every day.
The lengthy and wanting it’s calorie counting may match within the short-term, however not in the long term.
The OnPoint Diet Philosophy
At OnPoint Nutrition, our philosophy is anti-diet with a deal with meals teams and portioning. We don’t depend energy, eradicate main meals teams, or method your journey as a fast repair.
We’re right here that will help you obtain your well being targets whereas sustaining a constructive relationship with meals.
We deal with complete meals from six main meals teams and train you to make better choices every day. Your nutritionist or dietitian will work with you to find out the right way to construction your meals to incorporate all meals teams so you’re feeling glad and energized all day.
As an alternative of counting energy, we deal with holistic health together with:
- Meal and snack selections
- Every day meals group targets
- Water consumption
- Motion
- Every day reflections
- Progress towards your private targets
The place To Go From Right here
In case you are reconsidering calorie counting and would favor an method that may carry you thru the remainder of your life, we’re right here for you.
Should you’re able to dive into the world of enhancing your well being with out obsessively counting each calorie, our team is right here and prepared for you.
Schedule a free consultation right now to be taught extra about OnPoint and the way we will work collectively to attain your targets.
