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Is it Better to Count Calories or Carbs?

In a time where more than one in every three Americans is classified as obese by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the attention paid to weight management and weight loss is not surprising. Fad and so-called miracle diets sprout up each year, and many cause confusion whether calories, carbohydrates or some other unit of measurement should be cut from a diet to lose weight. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, CDC and the Mayo Clinic, though, weight management is all about the calories.

  1. Balancing Act

    • When it comes to weight management, all three of these institutions use the phrase "balancing act" to describe how calories directly relate to how much weight a person gains or loses. Eat more calories than you expend in a day, and those extra calories will be stored in fat cells and cause you to gain weight. Eat fewer calories than you expend, and your body will recover the calories from those fat cells, causing you to lose weight.

    Comparison

    • Diets encouraging you to count carbohydrates are not entirely unfounded. High-carbohydrate foods do tend to also be high in calories. If you only count carbohydrates, though, you may allow yourself to eat low-carbohydrate foods that are still high in calories, causing you to gain weight. When asked about the most effective diets of his study, Dr. Frank Sacks, co-author of a study in weight loss diets, told CNN Health, "[i]t's not the content of fat or the carbohydrates, it's just calories."

    Method

    • Counting calories is not as difficult as some think, especially with the availability of calorie counters on the Internet and food and activity diaries provided by the USDA and CDC, which count calories for you. On average, a person expends about 2,000 calories a day just from routine activities. To lose one pound, a person must expend 3,500 more calories than they take in. Losing one pound a week can be accomplished by eating only 1,500 calories a day, or by eating any number of calories and making sure to exercise enough to expend 500 calories more than you ate.

    Misconceptions

    • Many assume that in order to cut calories out of their diet, that they must "go on" a diet that restricts them from eating certain foods (such as high-carbohydrate foods) or only allows them to eat certain foods (the cabbage soup and grapefruit diets, for example). In reality, all foods have calories, and while some have much more than others, these foods can still be eaten as long as attention is paid to portion size and the amount of calories being taken in. Keep the calorie count low by eating smaller portions, and it is still possible to lose weight.

    Potential

    • While many consider "calorie counting" as a temporary endeavor that can be forgotten once a healthy weight is achieved, failing to be aware of your calorie intake and expenditure can cause you to regain the weight you lost. If you go back to eating large amounts of calories, your body will go back to storing the extra calories as fat cells. Plan to make calorie counting, or at least calorie estimation, a part of your life, which will allow you to maintain a healthy weight after achieving it.

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