WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM TRACKING YOUR CALORIES?

Jun 25

It turns out we’re all pretty bad at estimating our calories… so why should anyone ever track them?

At some point you may have heard me, or someone else say “intuitive eating is EXPERIENCED eating”. That you can’t know what or how much you should be eating unless you spend some amount of time tracking, measuring, and accounting for your diet in some capacity.

I, along with the entire Level TEN team, have seen the long-term benefits of temporary caloric/diet monitoring and tracking countless times over. Clients who have success with weight loss by tracking their calories and macros “in the present” usually end up pretty successfully managing their food intake (and thus weight loss) in the future even when they are no longer whipping out MyFitnessPal multiple times a day.

But WHY? Or in this case, a recent study tells us what is NOT the reason why…

Logically, you might think that after a period of tracking your food, you would be able to accurately “eyeball” and estimate what you are consuming and that would be the reason that you wouldn’t regain weight after stepping away from the food scales and tracking apps. While I do believe that is, at least in part, true, a recent study by Dahle et al. actually found that, regardless of weight being maintained or regained, more calories tend to be consumed than what's “mentally accounted for”.

In the study 3 groups were compared:

1.) 35 people who had lost at least 30 lbs and maintained it for at least a year

2.) 35 people with no history of obesity and BMI numbers below 25

3.) 35 people with a BMI over 25 who were not maintaining at least 30 lbs of weight loss

For one week, self-reported caloric intake values of participants from each group were compared with “actual intakes” measured via the “Doubly Labeled Water” method. ALL groups significantly underestimated how much they were consuming. So, it would seem that the “skill of estimation” is not the key to keeping weight off after it is lost.

Underreporting of Energy Intake in Weight Loss Maintainers. Dahle et al. (2021)

So… What IS It That You Learn From Tracking?

The above study doesn’t mean that tracking your calories is for naught but temporary reductions on the scale. As I mentioned, many clients who spend time tracking choose to no longer do so and have success with weight loss management. And it’s probably due to what you learn through the process of tracking:

1.) You become more aware of your tendencies, your habits, both good and bad.

2.) You acknowledge triggers that lead to favorable and unfavorable choices.

3.) You are exposed to a larger array of food sources and ingredients that you may have overlooked in the past.

4.) You start preparing more of your meals at home.

5.) You begin to incorporate more protein sources.

6.) You consume more fruits and vegetables, and thus, more fiber.

7.) You begin to eat out less.

8.) You gravitate towards the more nutrient dense options on the menu when you do eat out.

So on and so forth.

You create a structure and system that isn’t predicated on the act of tracking; it can fit into that system, but it isn’t itself, the system.