I am no expert, but in order to lose weight, you must burn more calories than you are consuming. It’s common sense, right? Calorie Counting is the #1 way to monitor your calorie deficit. Tracking calorie consumption and calorie expenditure lets you know what your deficit is everyday. It should always be a deficit or you will not lose weight.
It is quite a pain at first, but after a while you become so accustomed to it. It will become routine and you will know how much you’re taking in daily.
People also need to look at the word diet more closely. Diet is by definition, what we eat to fuel our bodies, not what foods we aren’t eating. I hate to hear the phrase “Im dieting”. No diets are highly successful when you go into it with a deprivation mentality. Instead “I’m eating right” is more positive and accurate phrase.
My favorite part of calorie tracking is knowing what percentage of my diet is Proteins, fats, carbs and others. I don’t believe in Atkins or Paleolithic type diet “fads”. They are great for quick results because of the drastic change in diet, but they are unrealistic and some even unhealthy as an everyday diet. I believe in a low fat and especially good fat diet. I try to make sure the fats I consume are of some healthy benefit to my body, like avocados, nuts, extra virgin coconut oil, etc. If I’m going to eat fats, I make sure they are unsaturated and easily converted to energy and less likely stored as fat. Not that I don’t indulge in a cupcake once in a while. But by tracking it, I’m more aware of what I am eating and burning and tend eat less of the bad foods.
The best website to monitor activity, weight, water & food logs is caloriecount.about.com
Its free, they have a mobile app, user friendly and many foods registered by brand with calories and nutritional values already in system. Takes the hard work out of it. Try it…you’ll love it!
