Most common questions used to investigate
Can you count calories accurately?
Do you associate calories with weight?
Do you count calories?
Do you consume the same food every day?
Do you always cook at home?
Do you pay more attention to the quality of your diet?
Common conclusions
It is impossible to count calories perfectly. Even the most sophisticated calorie-counting apps that are available today can only guess the calorie count of the foods you want, which means, knowing exactly how much you eat is impossible. This is because there are variations in the sizes of the foods we eat, so you can never know the calorie count.
There is no doubt that piling on calories will lead to weight gain. It is a simple mathematical calculator at the end of the day. The number of calories you consume should be less than the number of calories you burn, so a deficit is created. This deficit will lead to weight loss, and the larger deficit you have, the more will be your weight loss. But this doesn't give you the complete picture because if losing weight depends on how much you spend including the exercise that you do. So, calorie counting alone doesn't help you lose weight.
Counting calories can give you a ballpark idea of how much you have consumed, so you can exercise more or less to lose weight. In this sense, counting calories helps you to lose weight, but that alone is not sufficient to reduce those pounds.
It is difficult to consume the same foods every day. Some days, you may consume more carbs than protein and vice-versa. Though all of them have equal calories, the way your body processes them varies greatly. For example, eating 100 gms of carbs and 100 gms of fat are different because your body will use the carbs to fuel your body's activities while the 100gms of fat will be stored as fat by your body. This is why calorie counts alone are not enough.
Counting calories in restaurants is tough and even the best dietitians in the world have fallen woefully short in estimating the calories. In fact, many times, the calorie served in restaurants is twice that of the same food that's made at home. The difference could be attributed to the extra butter and cheese that are added for extra flavors in the restaurants. So, counting calories of restaurant foods is impossible and they sure don't add to any weight loss efforts.
Great! Continue to focus on the quality and opt for healthy foods.
The quality of your diet is more important than the calorie it contains and for good reason too. Imagine how good 100 calories of broccoli is for your body as opposed to 100 calories of onion rings. So, more than the diet it is the quality and the food from which it comes that matters.
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