We’ve all heard that if you want to lose weight you have to eat less calories than you burn. So why is it that when you obsessively count your calories and restrict your intake almost to an extreme, you still don’t get the results you want? Well, there are some big myths and misconceptions behind this and I am going to share those with you today.
So how many of you have spent weeks or months living on a tight daily caloric budget only to find yourself stuck at a certain weight after a certain point no matter how perfectly you stay within this daily budget? Or, perhaps you see continued weight loss, but find yourself feeling hungry all the time? After a point, you get fed up; you’re not getting results worth the pain of constant deprivation and you’re sick of calorie counting all together. Does this sound familiar?
We are told that the key to weight loss is to eat less than we burn. While there is some truth to this, there are also a lot of myths and misconceptions around this as well, which I’m going to get into today. Some of these are:
- All calories are created equal; a calorie is a calorie.
- The greater the deficit the greater the weight loss.
- You just aren’t committed enough if you can’t stick with it.
As I say often in my podcast episodes and in this blog, I have tried every diet there is. Most of them have one thing in common, which is they all involve a form of caloric reduction or restriction. Some may dress this up differently than others. For example, low carb or Keto diets don’t paint themselves as a calorie counting or calorie restricting diet, per se, but eliminating entire food groups is essentially the same thing. By eliminating carbohydrates, a significant portion of calories is being cut from your daily diet. Others like Weight Watchers, transform the calorie counting into a point system. Noom follows a similar concept, where your caloric budget increases with the amount of physical activity you do in a certain day. Then of course, there’s the straight up calorie counting types of diets. These approaches tend to put us in this all or nothing sort of mindset. We want results faster, so we aim to make the deficit as large as possible. We do this by going overboard with exercise and eating as little as possible. We also get into this mentality that if we aren’t perfect in following whatever the diet is that we are somehow doing a bad job or failing, which then makes use feel hopeless or discouraged.
The biggest issue with the focus being solely on calorie counting or caloric restriction, regardless of the form it takes, is that it fails to factor in the quality of what we eat. The focus becomes restriction and weight loss instead of properly fueling our bodies. This is one of the reasons I don’t like the concept of a “diet,” because restriction is inherent in the term. On some level we’re always approaching eating through the lens of what must be avoided, or what is “bad” food. In effect it becomes a form of self-punishment rather than self-care. This happens in a very subtle way. On the surface, we’re getting healthy, we tell ourselves. We’re exercising and eating less; surely that’s a good thing, right? No, not really.
There are all sorts of things that happen in our bodies and minds when we do this. For example, restricting calories too much, meaning the deficit in what you consume and what you burn, effects the hormones involved in the metabolism. After a certain point, your metabolism slows down from being in too large a deficit for too long. So, it will become harder to lose weight. Worse, in response, our impulse is to restrict more and increase exercise to burn more. This just makes the situation worse, and it is why the scale stops moving even though you’re doing more.
In the meantime, you’re burning yourself out. This is not sustainable for anyone. Sure, some may be able to push themselves longer than others, but eventually you crack. Your body will force you one way or another, often through injury or illness. Eventually you will crack and “overeat,” which is really just your body pumping out excess hunger hormones to get you to refuel it after depriving it for too long. This is when we feel guilty and ashamed, tell ourselves we are weak for not being able to sustain what is actually impossible to sustain. This all occurs because our focus is on the wrong thing and we’ve been misled by the tenets of these different diets that deprivation of food and overexertion in exercise are the keys to that perfect body we all want.
I’ve spent far too much of my life in this trap. My body is still very much recovering from decades of cycling through all these diets. I’ve learned all that I’m telling you the hard way and in many respects I am still working to reverse what I’ve done to myself by buying into all these fad diets. The good news is that you can recover. Even better news, you can get the physique you want without torturing yourself. In fact, the more you eat of the right kinds of foods, the kind that fuel your body, the better your body will look. The old adage is true, we are what we eat. Exercise is equally important, but again, it’s a shift from beating your body into shape to taking good care of it to keep it strong and healthy.
So what are the myths and misconceptions that get us into this boat and what are better ways to go about getting the results we want? Let’s get into it.
- All calories are created equal.
The first myth is that all calories are created equal. We’ve all heard that a calorie is a calorie and calories in calories out. Technically this is true if you are looking at it from a strictly energetic perspective; that’s what a calorie is, a unit of measurement of energy. Food is energy and calories tell us how much energy given foods have. That said, the type of fuel each food provides can be very different. You can think of it like the difference between the lowest grade of gasoline and the highest grade. Your car will perform differently based on what you give it most of the time. It’s a similar concept with the body and the types of food we eat.
Let’s say you set a daily caloric budget for yourself of 1,500 calories. You can technically eat whatever you want in a day, as long as you stick to this upper limit, but you will feel and perform very differently depending on what comprises that 1,500 calories. Trust me, I speak from experience. Let me give you an illustration.
Scenario 1:
Breakfast: sausage and cheese breakfast sandwich, no egg – 350 calories (27 C, 22F, 12 P) and nonfat latte – calories 94 (13C, 0.7F, 9 P)
Lunch: six-inch turkey and cheese sub sandwich – 310 calories (43 C, 7 F, 19 P)
ten-ounce bag of potato chips – 160 calories (15 C, 10F, 2 P) and small soda – 146 calories (36 C)
Dinner: salad – 135 calories (6C, 11 F, 1P) and spaghetti with meat sauce – 335 calories (45 C, 10F, 16 P).
All this comes to 1530 calories and no snacks between meals.
Scenario 2:
Breakfast: Protein shake – 137 calories (4 C, 2 F, 26 P)
Mid-morning snack: Protein shake – 137 calories (4 C, 2 F, 26 P), banana – 105 calories (27 C, 0.4 F, 1.3 P), whole grain toast with 0.5 T peanut butter – 116 calories (13 C, 5 F, 6 P)
Lunch: small turkey and avocado sandwich on multigrain with grape tomatoes and sliced cucumbers – 344 calories (53 C, 15 F, 23 P)
Afternoon snack: apple with 2 T peanut butter – 275 calories (30C, 16 F, 9 P)
Dinner: 2 chicken tacos with 2 T shredded cheese and corn tortillas – 315 calories (22 C, 12.5 F, 27 P)
Desert or evening snack: mixed berries – 100 calories (24 C, 0 F, 1P)
All this comes to 1,529 calories. In the second scenario you’re getting a lot more food and better-quality food in that the calories are coming from foods with a higher nutritional value. The second scenario includes more lean protein, sources of fat that also have high vitamins and nutrients like avocado and nut butters, and there are more fresh fruits and vegetables as well as higher fiber foods, all of which provide better satiation through the day.
As you can imagine, if you are following an even more restrictive calorie limit, you’d likely be cutting an entire meal out of the day to stay within your limit. This would leave you feeling hungry most of the time, especially if you are also exercising. While it is completely contrary to what most of us have been taught, the more you eat, along with exercise, the better your body will function and eventually look, assuming you are eating more of the foods that nourish your body.
1,700 calories comprised of foods empty in nutritional value like, pastries, doughnuts, chips, lattes, mochas, sodas, candy, cookies, or high in saturated fats and processed ingredients like fast food or many frozen foods or pre-packaged foods is not the same as 1,700 calories comprised of lean protein sources, healthy fats like olive oil, nut butters, and avocados, and complex carbohydrates like fruit, vegetables, and high fiber breads, pasta, and grains.
You can do either and get some results so long as you are within your daily limits, but your body composition and how well your body functions will be very different. Following the second example over time you will see improvements in your hair, skin, as well as muscle tone and overall physique. We’ve heard the term “skinny fat,” right? That’s where you might be smaller in terms of your weight and size but your physique or body composition reflects a not-so-great diet. So, while a calorie is a calorie, not all calories are equal in value. May of the calories we consume have little to no value, so it is more important to be mindful of the types of calories we consume in addition to how many calories we consume. - The greater the deficit, the greater the weight loss.
This is another pervasive myth about nutrition and weight loss that continues to float around out there. Looking back I cannot believe how many years I tortured myself believing this. I have done several variations low calorie diets, that were straight calorie counting approaches. One was based on what you wanted to weigh, say it was 130 pounds; so you add a zero and that was your daily intake. Another was staying at or under 1000 calories per day and the most insane I’ve ever tried was 500 calories a day. For the record, I don’t recommend any of these approaches to anyone.
The basic idea of this myth is that, when trying to lose weight, the greater the caloric deficit each day, the more weight you will lose. This is often accompanied with exercise. In my case, it was always accompanied with exercise. What I found in my own experience doing this is that you lose weight up to a certain point and then it stops coming off, at which point you restrict further thinking this will help only to find you remain stuck. Eventually you give up and go back to “normal eating” or up your calories. The weight comes back on faster than you lost it in the first place. It will level off if you continue to maintain a certain caloric intake, but won’t start to decline again easily if at all.
After years of doing this to myself, I learned this happens because you’re starving yourself in a way, at least as far as your body is concerned. From the brain and by extension your central nervous and endocrine systems’ perspectives, you are not getting enough food or nourishment relative to the output. This triggers the body to hold on to what it does get, slowing the metabolism down. The longer this goes the more you screw up your metabolism, inadvertently making it really, really hard to lose weight.
So, while being in a deficit is key to losing unwanted body fat and weight, you need to find a balance, so the deficit is not so large as to trigger your body into slowing the metabolism down. As much as we want to lose weight quickly, slow and steady is truly the golden ticket when it comes to losing and maintaining weight. - You just aren’t committed enough if you can’t stick with it.
Of all the myths out there, this may be the one that pisses me off the most. As if misleading people down a path of destroying their metabolism isn’t enough, some will tell you it’s because you’re weak when the inevitable catches up with you. I have a little reality check for folks on this, most of these fad diets, these restrictive approaches are not sustainable for life. I’m sure there are folks out there who have stuck with them for years, I am one of them, but sooner or later you will fall off the proverbial wagon with these approaches and it’s not because you’re not committed enough, not hard core enough, or don’t want results bad enough. It’s because your body will find a way to force you out of that ish, one way or another.
Your body needs a minimal level of nourishment, and it requires protein, fat, and carbohydrates to function properly. This is nature and biology. Cutting entire food groups (i.e., carbohydrates) or over-restricting caloric intake in some other form is not sustainable for life. So, when you find yourself finally veering from one of these types of plans, remember it is not some character flaw or weakness. Life is short and quality of life is important. Living life, enjoying vacations, social events, etc. should not completely derail your progress or require you to show up with a cooler of your own special food. Honestly, who wants to do this their entire life?
Following a reasonable eating approach, coupled with exercise most of the time will result in a healthier you, down to your physique. It may take more time to reach a certain goal, it may take more prep and planning most of the time, but it also allows flexibility for things like vacation and social events without destroying your progress, so long as you are consistent. This is key for your body; it wants consistency. So, if you provide it good fuel and exercise 85-90% of the time, you can achieve that physique you want without living in deprivation and beating yourself with exercise.
So, those are three myths around calorie counting and dieting in general that I wanted to break down and shed light on in today’s episode. I hope you find these helpful. I’ve done a couple podcast episodes and blog posts about methods of eating that I personally find manageable and sustainable if you want to check them out. They are macro tracking and what is often referred to as clean eating. Regardless what you do, keeping track of your food and water intake as well as exercise are all great ways to keep you on track and sustain your progress. I have been doing this for years to keep my head in the game so to speak. Check out my fitness and progress trackers available on amazon at the links below:
Beauty & Barbells Fitness Tracker https://a.co/d/aWO2VjY
Faith Fitness Joy Fitness Tracker: https://a.co/d/hjcqfO7
I Can & I Will: Weight Loss & Fitness Tracker (Tie-Dye) https://a.co/d/1HS8oYA
Progress not Perfection: Weight Loss and Fitness Tracker https://a.co/d/grjHQtf
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I hope this has blessed you. Please share your thoughts in the comments. If you find this helpful and want to continue the pursuit of faith, fitness, and joy with me, please like and subscribe. You can also find Faith Fitness Joy on Facebook and Instagram or check out the podcast at https://faithfitnessjoy.podbean.com. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you in the comments and on the socials!