Calorie Counting - the Pro's and Cons

I would like to keep everything balanced here and give you a general overview of the good and bad things associated with calorie counting.

Firstly, The Pros:

1) It helps you keep track - by keeping a track of your calories, you are able to see exactly what you are in taking in a simple number and you can document his number on a phone, app or diary etc...

2) You consider alternatives - if you are stuck between a chocolate bar and a yoghurt, you might find yourself picking the yoghurt to keep your calories at your required level, this has it's advantages.

3) It can motivate you to exercise - using the basic, burn vs. intake principle, you might find yourself wanting to exercise more to burn off any 'bad' choices you may have made and who is to argue with doing exercise?

4) Very little work involved - food can be confusing, with different types of sugars, fats and everything in between it can be hard to determine if something is healthy or if it is just fancy packaging. With calories, its a number you can measure, similar to point 1 above!

And... The Cons:

1) Obsessive compulsive calories (OCC) - it is highly - if not guaranteed - that you will obsess over the amount of calories you have taken in/burnt. If you are given a target of 1500 per day, getting 1499 feels good right? But then 1498 feels even better... You see where I'm going? Until suddenly you're eating 150 calories........................... Which does not help the body in any way.

2) Calories are just a number, there's more to food than the calorific value - Foods contain Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fats, Minerals and vitamins, along with a few other nutritional markers.

Have a look at http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/what-200-calories-looks-different-foods

This shows you what 200 calories looks like across different foods, some good, some bad. Most not ideal!

3) It gives you a bad relationship with food - Food is to be enjoyed, we need it to survive so why not make it tasty and enjoyable! However if you calorie count food can become your enemy and you refuse to eat certain things for the 'fear' of putting on weight. IF you eat healthily and in balance, you will not need count your calories and you will be ableto enjoy more food because of it.

4) Calorie requirement is different for everyone. - The amount of calories I need per day is different to my dad, just like yours will be different to your friends. Everyone's different and everyone tolerates food in a different way. So that 1200 calories for women and 1500 for men is a complete guide based on 1.4million people in a study. There are approx 7 BILLION people on earth. Think about that.

5) Most 'low calorie' foods contain more harmful sugar than their normal counterpart. - I've said it before and I'll say it again - 'low fat' 'reduced sugar' 'new lower blah bla blah' is an advertising ploy to make you think you are making a healthy choice (and in some cases it's better than what you were eating) BUT to make it taste as good as the original, they have to add man made sugars and preservatives so it sells (get it?). These sugars however are not digested by the stomach and are therefore transported to... You guessed it, the fat stores.

6) You miss out on new taste experiences - Generally you have to stick to the same types of foods with the same types of ingredients and so on, which also makes socialising a nightmare, you can't eat 'lunch' because you don't know the calorie value, you can't dine out because it will blow your number waaaay out and you miss out on some great foods. Having a meal out every so often will not kill you (unless it's under cooked!) it's when eating that biscuit and that meal out become a nightly occurrence that excess sugars store and you gain weight.

There you have it, hopefully a balanced attempt at calorie counting, tomorrow I will showcase the effects the body has when under calorie control.