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5 Reasons Why You Need To Focus On Nutrition Over Calorie Counting

Nutrition over calorie counting

It’s funny how in an attempt to lose or gain weight, we begin counting every minute calorie intake, diligently doing the math, when we hated the subject in school. But the math isn’t too complicated, right? To lose weight, you go into a deficit where calories out > calories in, and the exact opposite if you want to bulk up. 

While we’re doing all this math, reading up articles on the internet, browsing through YouTube channels and relying on self-taught nutritionists and dietitians, are we really asking the right questions? Are we using food to only fill in whatever we can in our given calorie budgets? Are we using food to provide the right nutrition to our body? Are we even choosing the right foods while we’re at it?

Why You Shouldn’t Rely On Calorie Counting 

While counting calories to lose/gain weight might be the most popular and followed method, overdoing it may not be the correct one. It’s quite dangerous as it can lead to many nutritional deficiencies. 500 calories could look like 2 big slices of pizza or a plate with rice/roti, a bowl of vegetables or pulses with curd and salad. The goal can be attained with both, but are we making the right choice that’ll help us stay healthier in the long run? So, rather than counting calories, it would make more sense to look at the nutrients on your meal plate.

Why You Need To Choose Nutrition Over Calorie Counting  

Let’s look at a few reasons why the focus should be on nutrition over calorie counting

  1. Food Quality Matters: Calories do not look into the quality of food you are eating. A low-calorie food with well-balanced macro and micronutrients is considered healthier than a high calorie, nutritionally poor food. For instance, an apple may have the same calories as a cookie, but we know which one is healthier.
  2. Nutrient Dense Foods: When you follow calorie counting, one tends to avoid the natural calorie dense foods like nuts, seeds, ghee, oils, and avocados, etc. which are very healthy and important for good metabolism and maintaining healthy weight.
  3. Thermic Effect of Food: The number of calories used to digest our food is different for various food groups, so this can alter the effects of calorie counting to some extent. Food items made of processed and refined products are digested faster and are likely to spike up our sugar levels, than those made of natural and unrefined forms, which will take up more energy to break down and get digested and keep the sugar levels stabilized.
  4. Bioavailable Calories: Recent studies have indicated that many foods have less bioavailable calories than originally thought of. For instance, almonds, peanuts and pistachios all seem to be less completely digested, providing fewer calories, almost 20% less than what is mentioned on the label. This may be true for other foods with tough cell walls. So, calorie counting may not actually be accurate here.
  5. Effect of Food on our Satiety: Different foods have a different effect on our satiety levels, some give us a feeling of fullness for longer than others. So all foods are measured on a scale called the satiety index, which is basically the measure of the ability of the foods to reduce hunger, increase feeling of fullness and reduce calorie intake for the next few hours. Eating foods with a low satiety index will make you hungry faster than foods with a high satiety index. 500 calories from an ice cream/doughnut will make you hungry sooner than 500 calories from sprouts/beans and vegetable salad.

So, the bottom line is to make smart choices with your food and focus more on the nutritional aspect rather than calorie counting. Once you pick nutrition over calorie counting, you will notice more satiety, improved energy levels, reduced inflammation, you’ll be able to maintain healthy weight and witness an overall improvement in your health! 

We hope this article helps you make healthier choices. For more on nutrition, check out Healthy Reads. If you want to know more about what kind of food you should incorporate, based on your weight loss or weight gain goals, speak to an expert by subscribing for GOQii’s Personalised Health Coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

Do leave your thoughts in the comments below! 

#BeTheForce 

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HOW CALORIES REALLY COUNT?

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CALORIE- a term that haunts many of us …And Counting Calories was one such thing that drove me crazy in the last 2 years. Somehow I always felt and many of you will agree, that, all the tasty and delicious food of the world has tons of calories, whereas the ones which we don’t find tasty, has fewer..

Two years back when I started my weight loss journey, my greatest difficulty was keeping a count of calories all the time. But then, it seemed to be the only option to lose weight. I was told that my calorie intake should be between 1200 cal- 1500 cal. Left with no choice, I did that for quite some time. Opting for low calorie food, staying hungry, doing cardio but sadly, the result was minor weight loss with pain in my knees, low energy levels and pale skin.

I was unable to understand the reason for so many health problems.  I was eating a healthy low cal diet (which seemed to be healthy then), was doing 45 min of cardio followed by strength training. Hence, I started reading about calories and weight loss. But, all my reading led to more confusion and I finally decided to do a course in nutrition. And that is when my understanding about being fit and healthy started to evolve. My studies made me identify  the areas where I was lacking. I was so conscious of calories but was not paying any attention to food and its quality.

Calorie is just a unit of measurement for energy content. It tells us how much energy we get by burning the food. And I realized that I should keep the definition of it as it is in my mind, and not make it  the focal point of my fitness journey. Carbohydrates contain between 3 and 4 kcal per gram; proteins are about the same; fats contain approximately 9 kcal per gram. I was of the mindset that for weight loss to happen, I have to decrease the intake of calories and increase the output by staying physically active. But, things are not as simple as they appear.  There is much more needed for correct weight loss to happen and to have a lean and fit body. And that much more is NUTRITION. From where these calories are coming is something that matters the most. For example – if a person consumes 1200 calories from processed food and the other consumes 1200 calories from  balanced diet which has carbs, proteins , fats and fiber … which one do you think will experience weight gain ? The answer is known to all of us- obviously the one consuming  calories from  processed food. So yes, 1200 calories matters but, what matters the most is- what these calories do in and to our bodies and from where these calories are coming i.e. the quality of the food. Eating fewer and fewer calories does not result in better weight loss. When our body senses an energy deficit, it slows its metabolism by reducing the output of important hormones.

 I have stopped counting calories now.  My eating pattern has totally changed. My focus is in making my every meal more nutritious and balanced with the right combination of carbohydrates , fats , proteins and fiber..  I have been focusing on what my body tells me. I eat if I feel hungry because my body needs food then. I still want to look a certain way. I want to be healthy, lean and fit. But, at the same time, I do not want to harm myself in any way by not taking care of the nutrition part of food. I am confident about myself now, I know the weight loss is going to be slow but that does not matter to me anymore.  Weight is just a number and no weighing scale can judge or tell me my fitness in terms of numbers.  It’s me who can feel it. I know that what I am eating now is certainly having more number of calories  than earlier but now, these calories are coming from the food that my body needs.

Thanks to my diet, I feel energetic throughout the day, my stamina for running has improved. I don’t feel any joint pain and I am sure I will soon be running a marathon, (something that I have always wanted to do)

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