5 Reasons Why Calorie Counting Doesn’t Work For Everyone

While I have never been a huge fan of stringent calorie counting, as a nutrition coach that helps clients remain in energy balance for performance and body composition, I do understand that sometimes its a subject that cannot be avoided.

Is a calorie a calorie?

Yes. A measurement of a calorie will always equal a calorie. However, I think a more specific question to ask is, does consuming one calorie and then “burning” one calorie put you in an equal energy balance?

In that case, no. Not only do different body compositions use energy differently, new research has also emerged that we have misunderstood how energy balance actually works.

Here is a look at some of the factors that affect energy balance.

#1. The thermic effect of food

Believe it or not, eating food actually burns energy. The act of eating itself and digesting and absorbing food or nutrients is a process that increases heat production.

This means that the type of food you choose can affect how you “burn” energy. On average, the thermic effect of food actually amounts to 10% of our total daily energy expenditure.

Essentially you are burning calories by just eating, how cool is the human body eh?

What this means when it comes to energy balance is that, your diet can determine how much more effective your weight loss efforts are. This leads us to the next point nicely…

#2. The satiety value of food

While you may feel like you are eating the same amount of food everyday, the amount of food on your plate often doesn’t accurately reflect the amount of energy you are intaking.

Highly processed foods for example tend to contain more energy than whole foods and since they also tend to be more hyper palatable, it can often mean we end up eating much more than we realise.

There is also the fact that our bodies react differently to different foods too.

Protein for example releases certain hormones that can directly impact satiety. The hormone Peptide YY (PYY3-36) for example is a hormone that is released in the hours after a meal has been consumed. This hormone sends a message to the brain to suppress appetite and to slow down stomach motility.

This means that the more protein you consume, the longer you will be able to remain full. This is often why increasing protein intake is recommended as a weight loss strategy.

When it comes to the thermic effect of food, protein also tends to have a high thermic response (produces a lot of heat), while fats are relatively low, this is where the term “meat sweats” has emerged.

#3. Your overall energy expenditure

Movement changes how our bodies process food and absorb energy. Needless to say, the more active an individual is, the more energy output there is going to be. An average sedentary individual with a typical 9-5 job that doesn’t have much opportunity to move might exert about 10-15% of their daily energy demand, whereas an athlete might exert 30% or more.

Here are some of the things you can expect to happen to your body when you increase energy expenditure:

• Your muscles get damaged but they also get repaired later, and if you recover well enough, they become stronger

• Your cells produce more energy

• You challenge your body’s defenses and increase its immunity

• You circulate more nutrients around your body

You can see in the points above that simply having a high TDEE can impact energy balance.

#4. Body composition matters

If your body is made of predominantly lean mass such as muscle, bone and connective tissue and very little body fat, it's going to require more energy to stay alive. 

Meaning, you’d have to eat more food to maintain weight.

Simply put, if lean people were cars, they would be expensive to keep on the road.

Individuals that carry more body fat, require slightly less. This is often why you can put two people next to each other that are the same age, height, weight but not necessarily the same body composition next to each, feed them the same exact food, and still not get the same fat loss results. 

In short, lean body mass costs more energy to maintain.

#5. Energy expenditure declines to compensate for increased energy expenditure

New study finds that we compensate for energy expenditure by 28%

A new study has revealed that for every 100 calories you burn whilst doing physical activities, your net calorie expenditure only amounts to 72 calories because of your body’s ability to compensate for energy loss.

Great, I hear you say.

Let me explain. In any given day, your total daily energy expenditure which includes the energy it takes to just exist (your basal energy expenditure or BEE), takes into account how much energy you are actually putting out into the world.

It turns out, that when you expend a certain amount of energy, you also somehow gain it back through energy compensation, as a means to save energy.

So whether you are burning energy through exercise or day to day activities, you are actually getting a calorie “refund” of 28%. Yay.

Our basal energy expenditure makes up the most of our total daily expenditure.

What’s more, they also have evidence that suggests the more fat you have, the more your body compensates for energy expenditure. It’s like capitalism for fat gain, hardly seems fair I know.

In a bid to find out why our bodies work this way, we have to look at our evolutionary history. Back when we were hunter gatherers and food was scarce, an increase in our energy expenditure could potentially put us at risk of predation.

So the more you move, the more the body wants to retain that energy.

Obviously this evolutionary trait isn’t very handy when it comes to modern day living and the plethora of highly processed foods that are available to us.

What you can do to challenge this new finding…

The answer most certainly is NOT to train harder. Doing so will only set you up for poor recovery and more injuries.

Instead, try this…

Increase your whole food intake

Remember that because the foods we choose changes how our bodies process nutrients and therefore how it absorbs energy, choosing mostly unprocessed foods will also help you to remain at a healthier energy balance.

Increase your non exercise energy expenditure

Activities such as walking count towards your total daily energy expenditure.

Purposeful exercise only makes up a small percentage of your overall daily expenditure. The majority of your energy expenditure comes from living.

What this means is that you can increase your daily movements through regular day to day activities like walking, doing house work, and/or gardening.

If you spend 1 hour in the gym smashing out your workout until you see stars but carry on with the rest of your day sat at your desk, regardless of how tough that workout felt, you’ve still spent a huge chunk of your day not moving very much.

Conclusion

Although having a basic understanding of how energy is used in the body is helpful in coming up with a strategy that works for you, remember that strict calorie counting is not necessary.

You could easily enter a body recomposition mesocycle without ever having to track calories or macros through practicing basic hand portions and recognising when you’re full or when you are hungry.

Those skills may take practice, but they certainly are more sustainable than having to weigh every bit of food.

Resources

Careau V, Halsey LG, Pontzer H, Ainslie PN, Andersen LF, Anderson LJ, et al. Energy compensation and adiposity in humans. Curr Biol. 2021 Aug 26.

Bellicha A, van Baak MA, Battista F, Beaulieu K, Blundell JE, Busetto L, et al. Effect of exercise training on weight loss, body composition changes, and weight maintenance in adults with overweight or obesity: An overview of 12 systematic reviews and 149 studies. Obes Rev. 2021 Jul;22 Suppl 4:e13256.