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Question:
Dear Tom,
I recently read Bill Phillip's book, "Body For Life," and he says that you
don't need to count calories and that instead, you should count "portions."
I read your article on calculating calories and you seem to advocate
strictly keeping track of calories. Do you really think it's necessary to
count calories every day? Isn't that unrealistic?
Answer:
Bill Phillips makes a very good point about counting portions instead of
calories. He's right that trying to count every single calorie - in the
literal sense - can drive you crazy and probably is NOT realistic as a
lifestyle for the long term.
Phillips wrote,
"There aren't many people who can keep track of their calorie intake for an
extended period of time. As an alternative, I recommend counting 'portions.'
A portion of food is roughly equal to the size of your clenched fist or the
palm of your hand. Each portion of protein or carbohydrate typically
contains between 100 and 150 calories. For example, one chicken breast is
approximately one portion of protein, and one medium-sized baked potato is
approximately one portion of carbohydrate."
I agree with Mr. Phillips for the most part. However, I do feel that it's
very important for you develop an understanding of and a respect for the law
of calorie balance. It's one thing to count portions instead of calories -
it's another altogether to deny that calories matter.
Is it necessary to count calories to lose weight? No. But it IS necessary to
eat fewer calories then you burn in order to lose weight. If you guess, how
can you be sure you have the calorie deficit you need to lose weight?
I believe that it's an important part of nutrition education to learn how
many calories are in the foods that you eat on a regular basis and how many
calories are in the foods you eat when you dine out at restaurants. You have
a huge advantage if you know at least a ballpark figure of how many calories
you're consuming compared to people who just "wing it" and guess.
Calories do count! Any diet program that tells you, "calories don't count"
or you can "eat all you want and still lose weight" (if you eat certain
foods or take certain diet pills), is a diet you should avoid.
The law of calorie balance is an unbreakable law of physics: Energy in
versus energy out dictates whether you will gain, lose or maintain your
weight.
To maintain your weight, you must consume the same number of calories you
burn up. To gain weight (muscle), you must consume more calories than you
burn up. To lose body weight, you must burn more calories than you consume
every day. Yes, calories do count!
If you eat more calories than your body can utilize, you're going to gain
fat, period. If you only count portions and haven't the slightest clue how
many calories you're taking in, it's a lot more likely that you'll eat more
calories than you realize. (Or you might take in fewer calories than you
should and trigger the dreaded "starvation mode" which causes your
metabolism to shut down)
So how do you balance practicality and realistic expectations with a
nutrition program that gets results?
Here's a solution that is a happy medium: Create a menu using an EXCEL
spreadsheet or your favorite nutrition software. Crunch all the numbers
including calories, protein, carbs and fats. Once you have your daily menu,
stick it on your refrigerator and you now have an eating "goal" for the day,
including a caloric target.
That is my definition of "counting calories" -- creating a menu plan you can
use as a daily guide, not necessarily writing down every morsel of food you
eat for the rest of your life.
If you get bored eating the same thing every day, you can easily exchange
foods using your sample menu as a template, or create two or three sample
menus.
Using this method, you really only have to count calories once: Count your
calories in the beginning when you're starting a new, healthier lifestyle,
in order to gain a familiarity with all of the staple foods you eat on a
daily basis. After you've got a knack for calories from this initial
discipline of menu planning, then you can estimate portions in the future
and get a pretty good (and educated) ballpark figure.
For more information on calories (including how many you should eat based on
your age, activity and individual characteristics) and for even more
practical fat loss techniques that strip off body fat fast, check out my
ebook, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle.
About the author:
Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, personal trainer, gym owner, freelance
writer and author of
Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle:
Fat Burning Secrets of the
World's Best Bodybuilders and Fitness Models. Tom has written over 140 articles
and has been featured in IRONMAN magazine, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular
Development, Muscle-Zine, Exercise for Men and Men's Exercise. Tom is the Fat
Loss Expert for
Global-Fitness.com and the nutrition editor for Femalemuscle
and his articles are featured regularly on literally dozens of other websites.
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