Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. Part of HuffPost Wellness. All rights reserved. It puts us in a restrictive diet mentality. You lose touch with your hunger cues. You might fixate on a number rather than on nutrition. You may develop an unhealthy preoccupation with food.
Counting calories is a hard habit to break. Westend61 via Getty Images. Think about how what you eat makes you feel. Tune in to what your body actually wants. Unfortunately, trying to count calories can negatively affect other areas of your health. Eating too few calories means that you may not be building the muscle you want.
We need to have a healthy relationship with food. When our bodies are put under stress, they hold on to unwanted fat. You might be focused just on what you look like, but your mental health matters, as well. This can lead to dangerous restrictive eating patterns. But, they often have additives, fillers, and preservatives to replace the calories that were removed, while maintaining taste and mouthfeel.
This is simply not in line with many peoples lives and cannot be maintained in a pleasurable way over time. The calculator also factors in the amount of time in which the person would like to reach this goal. Most foods and drinks have labels that indicate portion sizes — in cups, ounces, grams, pieces, slices, or numbers. Considering portions can help with counting calories and maintaining a healthful weight.
Consuming more or fewer calories should never be the only consideration when setting weight or fitness goals. Sleep, stress, and activity levels all play a role in maintaining a healthful weight. In addition, the source of calories — the quality and type of food or drink involved — can have a significant effect.
Every calorie converts to energy, but the same number of calories from different foods may have different effects.
For example, if a person consumes their daily allowance of calories from foods with plenty of added sugar and refined carbohydrates , this can raise their blood sugar levels and result in an increase in fat storage.
Similarly, if foods rich in animal fats, particularly red meat, contribute a significant number of calories on a regular basis, this may increase the risk of certain cancers, such as esophageal cancer.
It is crucial to obtain calories from a healthful diet that contains fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and healthy sources of fats, such as nuts, avocados, and olive oil.
These foods contain the nutrients that the body needs to function. Refined sugar may be a particular concern, as a diet that contains an excess of it can lead to insulin spikes, causing fat cells to store calories. As these calories do not contain necessary nutrients, the body responds with a sensation of hunger.
Counting calories can help people reach and maintain their weight and fitness goals, as it involves tracking how much energy is going into the body each day. Several apps and online tools can estimate how many daily calories a person needs to reach their goals and help track them day by day. We used to think that since 3, calories equal a pound, every time you eat 3, extra calories beyond what your body needs, you end up gaining that weight.
Now we know better: Not all calories are equal like we thought. Even the bacteria in your gut may play a part in how you digest food and how many calories you derive from it. Due to size differences, one sweet potato varies in calories from another before you even take it off the shelf at the store. But wait! In fact, the Food and Drug Administration allows up to 20 percent margin of error in the numbers on those nutrition labels you likely rely on to count many of your calories.
This, in turn, may cause you to become hungrier…and eat more. Vicious cycle? The good news is that when you only overeat from time to time, your body can handle those extra calories without making you gain weight.
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