Why calorie counting is ridiculous

1LoveChips

Charlotte Ord (of Biggest Loser UK fame) says:

http://charlotteord.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/why-calorie-counting-is-ridiculous.html

Discuss!

1LoveChips

Original Text:


"If you're a regular reader of my emails you'll know that I'm not the biggest fan of calorie counting as a weight loss method. In fact, that's an understatement. It's drives me freakin' mental.

Why?

Because it's the most non commonsensical, ridiculous, scientifically proven-to-be-wrong idea ever and yet virtually the entire world, including a huuuuuuge percentage of 'weight loss professionals' are advocating it as the way to go for a slimmer, healthier body.

ARRRGGHHHHHHHH!

And you know what really makes me mad about the calories in vs. calories out theory?

It actually MAKES PEOPLE FATTER. And more depressed and miserable. And it makes them blame themselves for failing when it's not their fault.

Let's look at the facts. Not even the scientific facts. Just the plain old glaringly obvious ones.

Pre 1970s, no one counted calories.

Pre 1970s, barely anyone even knew what a calorie was.

Then, low and behold, some bright spark set off a myth that if you just eat less than you burn off, you'll lose weight.

Now, short term this may be true in SOME (not all) people. But telling someone who is overweight to eat less and exercise more is like telling someone who is depressed to frown less and smile more. It demonstrates a complete and utter lack of any understanding of the intricate marvel that is the human metabolism, or, in the case of depression, biochemistry.

Every single organism in the world seeks to maintain internal balance (aka, homeostasis). We don't have to think about our blood sugar dropping low or getting too low, it gets regulated automatically. Of course, things can get broken, and in the case of blood sugar, that's what diabetes is. But when things get broken in the body, it's more often than not as a result of what we subject it to. I'll get to this in a sec...

Incidentally, the introduction of the calories in vs calories out counting frenzy coincided with the unprecedented rise in obesity.

So how come all those pre-1970 non-calorie counters went millions of years without getting obese?

They just ate natural food.

You see, it's NOT a case of quantity, and stupid little calories.

It's a case of QUALITY.

Think of it like the time I accidentally put unleaded in my friend's diesel horsebox. £5 of unleaded I put in.

It wrecked the entire engine.

A little bit of **** food in your body has EXACTLY the same effect.

So all those manufacturers creating food substitutes like chocolate bars and crisps and telling you to 'treat yourself' and have it all in moderation... remember it's not about the quantity.. it will have the same damaging effect on your metabolism as unleaded had on that horsebox.

It will wreck your metabolic homeostasis.

Further proof that you really don't need to count calories to maintain a healthy weight is that we are the only species on the planet who counts them.

Have you noticed how animals in the wild rarely get excessively overweight? Even though they're not counting calories? It's only our domesticated pets who get overfed on processed pet food who struggle to stay in shape.

Can you imagine tribes in the middle of Africa whipping out their calculators mid-hunt to ensure the wild boar they're eyeing up won't take them over their daily quota?

It literally drives me bonkers when I hear 'reputable' weight loss organisations encouraging people to off set their highly processed, toxic food substitutes with a jog.

It's a bit like telling someone to offset the 12 *kitten* they just smoked with a bike ride.

It ain't gonna work!!

As you can tell, this really gets my goat. It wouldn't so much if it actually helped, but it does the exact opposite for the vast majority of people and we've been brainwashed with it so intensively for so long now that people have a real hard time giving up the idea.

Calories do count but there is absolutely no need to count them.

If you have fat you want to lose think nutrition and food quality, NOT calories and quantity.

In my experience of working with thousands of people, counting calories merely takes your attention away from your passion and purpose and away from eating the natural foods that were intended for us and help us thrive.


Char"

tennisdude2004

wow - in to see where this one ends up!!!!!!!!

train_01

It seems to me she is forgetting that people are WAY less active today than they were "pre-1970s". Technology is wonderful but it has made us lazier. Sure the people hunting the wild boar are not going to worry about the calories, but that is because they probably don't spend 9 hours a day glued to a computer. That's my take...

1LoveChips

It seems to me she is forgetting that people are WAY less active today than they were "pre-1970s". Technology is wonderful but it has made us lazier. Sure the people hunting the wild boar are not going to worry about the calories, but that is because they probably don't spend 9 hours a day glued to a computer. That's my take...

Nailed it! :happy:

hyphenbobbit

Not sure I agree with her either - like already said, there is no mention of lack of exercise or the fact that food is so much more readily available so we probably do eat more than our grandparents did!

vsfitzpatrick

Personally, I think calorie counting is great for beginners. By counting calories people can better understand how much they are actually consuming and become more "calorie aware". However, I could NEVER imagine counting calories for the rest of my life.... it just helps me reach my goal and once i reach it i will (hopefully) have moved on to a healthier lifestlye where i wont need to count and I can just maintain my weight. I wasn't actually able to read the link on my work computer so I can't really discuss any of that, but as to the previous comment about people never having tracked calories in earlier years; it's pretty obvious as to why. Food wasn't what is is now and people actually had to ration and WORK for a living. We have become so sedendary that we have to work out to even maintain a semi-healthy lifestyle. The food industry makes it nearly impossible to be healthy and make the correct choices. A main factor I think has sabatoged Americans is GMO'S!!!! Food is no longer food and that is the maine reason for obesity; obviously along with the ease and readiness of high caloried non-nutricious foods and the JUNK children are being served in schools.

nomeejerome

:huh:

Hadabetter

Great, another fitness coach spouting nonsense. I wish there was a minimum intelligence requirement for becoming a fitness coach.

LassoOfTruth

Bump.

Mr_Bad_Example

Advice from someone involved with the Biggest Loser?

No thanks, I'll pass. Stupid makes me fat.

SapiensPisces

This entire website is full of people who are a testament to how wrong she is.

mortuseon

???? Not scientifically proven???? Where does she think the whole concept of calories came from? What an idiot. Sorry to be so demeaning, but it's true...her whole argument is based on anecdotes/opinion.

KarenJanine

This proves that being on the Biggest Loser does nothing to teach the contestants about human nutritional as this person apparently has no idea of what a calorie is.

workout_ninja

so this girl was on the biggest loser? A show that makes you exercise for 8 hours a say while surviving on 1400 calories? that sounds really healthy. Has anyone told this girl she is an idiot? Cause I would really like to.

Calories in vs calories out has made me lose 41lbs in 220 days. Yeah - doesnt work at all does it!

_Zardoz_

Discuss!

Err No I'll use my energy on something useful

septembergrrl

She has the right to feel what she feels. However, you know what's going to happen if you quit eating chocolate bars and chips and start eating fruit and brown rice? You're gonna take in fewer calories. Of course, people don't need to pay a fitness coach to find out how to count calories -- everyone's known how to do it for decades, and with smartphones it's almost brainless. So she says that's not what she's doing.

The weight loss industry is such a scam.

WickedPineapple

It seems to me she is forgetting that people are WAY less active today than they were "pre-1970s". Technology is wonderful but it has made us lazier. Sure the people hunting the wild boar are not going to worry about the calories, but that is because they probably don't spend 9 hours a day glued to a computer. That's my take...

^This. Jobs are becoming increasingly sedentary, to ignore this completely doesn't help her argument. She's overly stuck on the past, it's not the 1970s, it's now. How we live is different and we need to adjust accordingly.

She also doesn't cite, well, anything, so this is purely anecdotal. Although she says buzzwords like 'scientifically' and 'proof', because that 'counts'. I agree with her that the quality of food matters, but counting calories (and other nutrients) helps a person see which foods are more nutrient dense and which are empty calories.

She also completely ignores exercise. Pretty lame article, really.

amwoidyla

So I actually watched a youtube video yesterday that talks about metabolic homeostasis and how dieting can make you fatter, just like this gal mentioned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5C3uqA1yRI
It's a long video, but to break it down: Yo-yoing between very low cal diets and "normal" unrestricted eating can cause you to gain more body fat back than you did pre-diet.

As far as her argument between 1970 and today: Our lifestyles and food are very different between then and now! I'm pretty sure if most of us could eat healthily and maintain our weight without calorie counting, we wouldn't be here. I feel like counting calories makes us more aware of what constitutes a "healthy" choice vs. another choice.

YearsWorthOfFAT

I disagree with her so much omg,.

cwolfman13

Worked for me....

that said, I do believe that it is "training wheels"...it should be viewed as something you do to train or re-train yourself on how to eat. I can maintain very easily without counting calories...counting calories, along with macros helps immensely when cutting, especially for my current cut for which I want to be very careful and slow and make sure I'm hitting my macros and other nutrients...I'm trying to drop a couple more points in BF, but I"m also training for an event and need to properly fuel my body. It will also come in pretty handy should I ever decide to try to build muscle mass.

I think this chick is pretty much a testament to stupid....

shutyourpieholeandsquat

It seems to me she is forgetting that people are WAY less active today than they were "pre-1970s". Technology is wonderful but it has made us lazier. Sure the people hunting the wild boar are not going to worry about the calories, but that is because they probably don't spend 9 hours a day glued to a computer. That's my take...

Yep!

KANGOOJUMPS

CALORIE COUNTING IS RIDICULOUS!

shira324

Great, another fitness coach spouting nonsense. I wish there was a minimum intelligence requirement for becoming a fitness coach.

THIS. I'm often tempting to remind people on MFP (and in the real world) that fitness coaches and personal trainers are NOT doctors. They are not perfect, they're not gods. They have specialized training, yes, and they can be enormously helpful motivators, but that doesn't make them smarter than everyone else.

roxylola

what a mug if she got spun the line that £5 unleaded wrecked a whole diesel engine, that size of tank the fuel would probably just burn off with no effect whatsoever! In larger amounts, it's not good and it won't run well if at all on it but drain off the tank and you are good. Sorry but if she believes that she will believe anything

jkwolly

This entire website is full of people who are a testament to how wrong she is.

This!

tigersword

TL:DR translation: "I have no idea what the *kitten* I'm talking about, so please feel free to ignore me."

JTick

:huh:

Hm. So I guess I'm some weird enigma where even though I'm 81 lbs lighter, I'm somehow fatter than I used to be.

BTW, I'm not a clean eater. At all. I have to actually remind myself to eat some veggies sometimes. :laugh:

ImpishVanity

I don't care how good of quality of gas you put in your horsebox, too much is too much is too much. So even "good" calories from all natural sources can be too much if you overeat.

Animals in the wild spend 90% of their time in activity - actively searching for, gathering or hunting down their food. As did those hunters with the boar. Often animals, and earlier humans for that matter, went DAYS without food at all. That is simply not the case today. Food is readily available with minimal effort. Those with active jobs have an easier time staying in shape than those who have computer or other sedentary jobs.

While I agree we should probably incorporate more whole foods in our diets, I don't think it's bad to eat anything you want in moderation. And the way to moderate that is to count calories in versus calories out to make sure your body is getting the right number of calories to fuel itself and still help you lose weight.

cwolfman13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5C3uqA1yRI
It's a long video, but to break it down: Yo-yoing between very low cal diets and "normal" unrestricted eating can cause you to gain more body fat back than you did pre-diet.

The problem is that people don't really learn anything while they're trimming down...they get to some arbitrary goal weight and they're "done"...they've crossed some finish line or sorts.

You can't go back to "normal" unrestricted eating...the only difference between my cut and maintenance is a few hundred calories...that's it. I just don't see how people don't get this. If you go back to "normal" eating then of course you're going to put the weight back on, and then some. There has to be a new "normal"...which is what "lifestyle change" is all about...but that is apparently lost a about 95% of people who have issues maintaining weight after they've lost it.

Reaching your goal weight is just the beginning...you haven't arrived at the finish line...you've just arrived at the starting line of a very long race called, "maintenance." That's where the real work happens...too bad so many people fail to realize this.

I'm sure this chick will put her weight back on too...because she sound like a moron and obviously doesn't really get it.

firstsip

"Don't count calories, it'll make you fatter! However, if you purchase The Biggest Loser protein shakes, snacks, and workout DVDs, all of your wildest dreams will come true."