Are You Wasting Your Time Counting Calories?

A recent study investigating calorie intakes has found that mice fed certain types of food responded differently depending on the food, even if calorie intakes were the same.

If, for instance you eat a food high in fiber and protein, it takes your body longer for this to break it down than a food high in sugar or refined flour.

If both these foods have 200 calories, traditional, basic thinking would indicate that both would have the same effect on weight loss and body composition. However, researchers found that the digestibility of the food had an impact on the calories used to break it down.

This is a concept known as the thermic effect of food.

The more of a challenge it is for your body to break down, digest, absorb and use a single food group, the higher this thermic effect of food and the higher calorie burn.

This is very similar to the idea of the glycemic index – a concept which was held in very high regard in dieting circles throughout the 1980s and 90s. To illustrate the points, take two foods – almonds and fruit juice from concentrate.

For arguments sake, say you were to eat exactly 100 calories worth of each food. Now the almonds have a much higher content of protein, fiber and healthy fat, compared to the fruit juice. Fruit juice has already been partially broken down, and due to a lack of pulp and flesh, is low in fiber and easy to digest.

It would take much longer for your body to digest the almonds, than it would the fruit juice. Hence a higher calorie burn during the digestion process, not to mention 100 calories of almonds probably making you feel much more full and satiated than 100 calories worth of fruit juice.

You could also add two more points to the idea that calorie counting is redundant.

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Plus, many foods, particularly fresh produce, and anything bought from markets or local producers often don't even have calorie values listed, making it very difficult to track.

Finally, to many, calorie counting feels like a chore. Many people do far better simply by basing their diet around these high fiber, high protein, low sugar, more filling foods. By eating more of these, you’ll probably eat fewer calories anyway than if you were gorging on sugar all day.

Why Calorie Counting Actually Rocks

The first thing that should light a fire inside your brain regards the methods used in the study.

While the DNA, genetics and metabolisms of rats and humans aren't too dissimilar, rats actually gain fat at around 10 times the rate of humans, meaning whatever results seen with the rats in terms of weight gain would be greatly reduced in humans.

A second, but probably even more important point is that our diets generally combine foods.

This is the major issue with this study, and with the whole idea of the glycemic index and the fast versus slow foods suggestion.

How often do you just eat a serving of walnuts? Or sit down to a dinner of just a plate of pasta – no sauce, no veggies, no meat? Even a hardcore bodybuilder eats some broccoli with his chicken.

In a meal you could have five, 10, even 15 different ingredients, and a mixture of protein, different types of fat and sugary and starchy carbs, all on the same plate. The addition of any fiber, fat or protein to a meal automatically slows the digestion. So while a serving of fruit juice, a pop tart or bowl of white rice may make your blood sugars jump up, and digest extremely quickly, as soon as you add a scoop of protein powder to your fruit juice, have an apple with your pop tart or combine your rice with some salmon and veggies, you slow the digestion, thus increase the thermic effect of food and calorie burn.

Another biggie that the researchers failed to mention was total calorie intake, total calorie expenditure, and how much this thermic effect of food actually plays a role in weight and fat loss.

The answer: Very little.

In the grand scheme of things when it comes to a weight loss diet, your progress will be determined mainly by your overall caloric intake, regardless of the types of food you eat.

The second biggest player will be exercise, both in the sense of planned exercises, such as going to the gym and playing sports, and the activity you don’t count as training, such as walking to the grocery store or climbing stairs.

Third up is your own genetic metabolism potential – whatever you do, this is set in stone. If you’re lucky enough to have a fast metabolism, you may find weight loss easier, but if you’re cursed with a slow one, weight loss may be tougher (though far from impossible.)

Read More: How Many Calories Do You Really Need?

It might play a small role of perhaps five percent of your total progress. However, as previously discussed, provided you’re eating balanced, mixed meals, any difference in this will be negligible, if any at all.

As a last point, whether or not the digestion speed effects how many calories you burn or absorb, calorie counting is still the most accurate way of measuring food intake that we have available to us. Whether or not you count them or not, your body does, so don’t dismiss calorie counting just yet.