“Calories” by simmons.kevin4208 is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Calories matter when it comes to managing one’s weight. A person needs enough energy to live their life. An excess = gain. An deficit = loss. Everybody knows that weight loss/weight gain is all about energy input and output.
Counting calories is a red hot pain in the ass. It’s tedious. It’s repetitive. And you know what? IT ISN’T EVEN ACCURATE!
I think “calorie counting” can still be a useful tool if you’re the type of person who can treat numbers as information and not an excuse to beat up on yourself. Observation is a science. You get a picture of what’s going on when you track things.
The calorie count on the label is an approximation. There are several ways to scientifically determine the calories in a food. None of them are 100% reliable. Precision Nutrition has a great explanation of how the amount of calories that you will get from a serving of food can be off by up to 25%
I am an avid user of MyFitnessPal and log what I eat. Regardless of whether the counts are 25% off I can use it as a benchmark. I know if the number is higher or lower that I’m doing something different – and I can observe the result in how I feel (and yeah, with that other non-important number, my weight).
In the end, one needs to understand how many “calories” they need to consume for their size. Otherwise, one can’t work on creating the appropriate deficit or surplus to meet their goals. I tell clients to use their hands as built-in portion control tools.
Eat the number of servings that matches your need. Log it for a few days so you know your baseline number. Quit logging when you feel comfortable with eyeballing the serving. If your benchmarks change in a direction you don’t like (i.e. weight creeps up, sports performance changes etc.), then go back to tracking and make adjustments.