This is part 1 of the “3 part calorie counting series“
One reason only: To Quantify Energy intake and expenditure
To achieve one’s fitness goals, most of the time you need to manipulate energy balance.
If you want to lose weight, then obviously you need to eat less than you expend, you can easily quantify this action by saying, “I’m eating 2500 calories less and I expend 3000 calories. I’m eating 500 calories less than I expend.” Similarly, if you want to gain weight, you can easily say, “I’m eating 3500 calories and 500 calories more than I expend.”
Even for people who are looking to maintain their physiques, you can say something like, “I need about 3000 calories to maintain my weight, and i’ve eaten 2000 calories so far. Another 1000 to go!”
It is nothing but a method to achieve certainty in this respect.
Note, there some people who have the ability to eat according to ‘feel’. They know when their eating too much and can simply feel how much to reduce/increase caloric intake to reach their goals. They somehow can manage their hunger signals pretty well.
There are others (like me) who really have to analyse and know what they’re eating. Sure, that is going to be some level of uncertainty.
Counting probably isn’t a good term then, ‘Estimating’ would be a better word. So when I say I ate about 3000 calories, that’s usually rounded off to the nearest 50 calories and probably has an uncertainty of maybe 150 calories. So I probably really ate 2943.54 calories, but 3000 is a good enough estimate that is way better than saying, “I probably ate the same as yesterday and thus I should be maintaining my weight if I continue to eat like this.”
Human Hunger is usually a very complicated thing with many different mechanisms affecting it, and thus many (if not most) people cannot eat based upon their hunger level. Just think of the guys who get hungry after seeing that McDonald’s ad and then proceed to polish off that Big Mac.
Hence, estimating calories is simply a way to quantify what you’re eating to know if you are aligned with your goals. It is simply another means to an end. Some people can do without it, but I daresay that most people cannot.
Next up….How to count (or rather estimate) calories
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