Calorie count; Worth it or not?

A calorie, or technically a kilocalorie, is the unit of measurement for the amount of energy present in a serving size of food. So, if you ate half a cup of gluten-free oats, you’re consuming 150 calories. These calories are from the carbohydrates, fats, and protein that make up the oats you ate.

With so many fitness apps and activity trackers available, counting calories and monitoring fitness is easier to do than ever before. But does this emerging technology help us reach our health goals or is it an obsessive waste of time? Well, it depends on how you use it. Here’s a list of pros and cons, as well as some simple suggestions to help you eat smarter.

 

◊       The Pros of Calorie Tracking

 

·       You could monitor how much you’re eating.

Keeping track of calories could be helpful if you want to monitor how much food you’re eating. It could also teach you about the density and overall quantity of food you’re consuming every day compared to the recommended level.

When you first start calorie counting, you might be shocked by the amount of food you’re eating. You might even discover you’re already overeating. Also, the portions of food from restaurants are two to three times larger than the recommended amounts. So, having a way to monitor how much you eat could help you adjust your eating habits.

 
·       You’d be more open to healthier alternatives to the food you usually eat. 

Tracking calories could also teach you to seek healthier alternatives. For example, a two-ounce serving of pasta has 200 calories while a spiralized zucchini or sweet potato only has a fraction of that. Since you’re tracking your calories, you could switch to the alternative as it won’t go over your calorie limit. By choosing the healthier option, you could add density to your meals, and it could also leave you fuller for longer periods.

 

◊       The Cons of Calorie Tracking

 

·       Calorie-tracking apps may be subject to errors and imprecision.
Relying on popular calorie-tracking apps could also lead to inaccuracies. These applications may have massive records about a wide-variety food and their nutritional information, but you make a mistake in putting in your data. So, it’s better to scan the food label in your food even though the figures stated there are mostly estimates only.

 

·       You could resort to unhealthy eating habits, affecting your diet.
Another issue with counting calories is many people don’t take into account the level of macronutrients in their food. Protein, fats, and carbohydrates, among others, are essential to keep your body healthy. Achieving a balanced diet, along with sleep and exercise is very important so you could get the nutrients you need, regain your energy, manage your weight properly, and maintain a healthy body. You could fill your calorie count with unhealthy food such as ice cream, French fries, chips, etc., but you might have serious nutritional deficiencies and little energy.

 

◊       Closing Thoughts

 

If you want to keep track of the calories in your food, you should aim to balance your consumption of macronutrients, too. You should do this as having an unbalanced diet for the sake of hitting your target daily calorie levels could lead to serious health problems and hamper your fitness progress. So, if you want to count your calories, make sure to eat healthy food that contains the right amounts of macronutrients you need every day.