In fact, there are many other metrics that matter more to your overall health than weight, including genetics, access to healthcare and mental health. CNET already has a guide on expert-backed ways to safely calorie count if you choose to do so, but it's important to remember body weight and shape aren't the sole indicators of your health. Many find that counting calories is an effective way to maintain a calorie deficit and lose weight. d3sign/Getty Images Is there really a safe way to calorie count? If you keep track of calories, and other health metrics, it's important to maintain a healthy relationship with both eating and exercise.
"If you start denying yourself social situations that you used to previously enjoy going to because it's not going to fit in your calories, that's a really big sign that you should reconsider what you're doing," Gaviria said.
Gaviria said the biggest indicator you need to stop tracking is if you're asked out to eat and the first thing that goes through your mind is your calorie window. If you feel compelled to track calories while cooking or eating, then that could be a sign you're compulsive tracking. If you find yourself thinking about food often or getting worried throughout the day about your future food choices and how you'll fit it into your calorie allotment, you should consider stopping. If you do decide to use calorie tracking regularly, as Gaviria stated, it's important to know when to stop.Įxperiencing feelings of guilt, shame or anxiety is a sign that calorie tracking is becoming harmful and you should stop immediately. It's likely that at some point, you may try calorie counting either out of curiosity or to lose weight. tommaso79/Getty Images When should someone stop calorie counting? "Not to mention that it's just very time-consuming, it takes up a lot of brain space to be like, 'Okay, well, if I need to have this meal, I only have 500 calories left, what meal can I build that is going to be 500 calories?'"Įxperiencing feelings of guilt, shame or anxiety is a sign that calorie tracking is becoming harmful. "You have to essentially know precisely what the calorie content of the food is that you're eating and that gets difficult to do without getting even more meticulous by weighing and measuring things out," Gaviria said.
It's even harder for fruits and veggies - if there are 110 calories in a banana, how big is that banana? With so many different sizes, each is going to have a different amount of calories. For instance, if you're looking up the calories in a half-cup serving of rice, that number will be different if the rice is cooked or uncooked. While there are several online directories of calorie counts for foods, getting precise numbers is still not straightforward. For starters, it's hard to know how many calories are in the food you're eating. Tracking your calorie intake accurately is notoriously difficult. To find the truth, I spoke to an expert, David Gaviria, a doctoral student in the department of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Depending on where you look, research can rebuff or affirm the effectiveness of calorie counting. Self-proclaimed health experts on social media sites like Instagram and TikTok say that weight loss boils down to calories in versus calories out. Like with many trends that emerge in the health and wellness realm, we need to critically evaluate both the promised benefits and the potential hazards. But is calorie counting really a healthy practice? Apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom built their brands around determining exactly how many calories were in that Starbucks Grande Vanilla Latte (250) or that banana you had for breakfast (105) for the stated purpose of helping users lose weight or make changes to their body shape by maintaining a calorie deficit. I was eager to make changes to my body shape and improve my health, and I'd read that calorie counting was the best method.Ĭalorie counting has often been considered an effective way to quantitatively measure your nutrition. There was a time in my life when I wouldn't eat a meal without carefully documenting exactly how many calories I was consuming and how many I had left over for the rest of the day.
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