Does Calorie Counting work?

If you were to ask the internet this you’d probably get a whole host of toxic arguments, some for calorie counting and some against. As always, any reasonable person can see it has merits and flaws. It has a lot of positives but the one major fall back is that it isn’t a great long term crutch.

Just like going to school is really important, but at some point you graduate from school and move on. I ask all my physique goal orinatated clients to use MyFitnessPal (or another calorie counting tool) for our first 8 week block and then try and move away from using it there after. It has massive upsides in the first 2-3 weeks especially:

• Gives you a relatively accurate idea of the energy content of common foods you eat

• Makes you very mindful of what you’re eating and how it’s going to impact your progress

• It enables you to fit in snacks/treats and not typically diet foods without feeling guilty, nail you calorie and protein targets, eat sufficient fruit & veg, then slot in some naughty stuff as and when needed!

• It makes it very easy for me too help you and give you feedback on what we might want to change

• You can objectively reflect on the week and adjust the calorie intake if you’re not losing weight. If you’re just reducing portion sizes without tracking and it DOESN’T work it’s difficult to take stock of where it went wrong and adjust

Why we’d never use it long term:

• First and foremost, after you’ve used it for 4 weeks, you probably won’t need it. Most of the stuff you eat you’ve already weighed & measured numerous times and can do it using cup measurements and eye balling.

• It’s potentially bad for your mental health - i’ve actually never trained anyone who’s not enjoyed using it to be honest but I know it’s not good for people with mental health problems or eating disorders.

• It’s a ball ache, like most exercise apps, its faff to be using every day!