Why You Should Use Food Logging to Lose Weight (And Which App to Choose)
I think calories have a bad reputation. In the dieting world, they are subject to heated debate between those who think calories are the end all of weight loss and those who think that the quality of your food matters more than the quantity.
I actually agree with both sides. As a nurse practitioner who specializes in weight loss, I know that eating fewer calories than you burn, otherwise known as a calorie deficit, is the only real, proven way to lose weight.
However, I also believe that your weight is not the bottom line when it comes to health, and it’s equally as important to make sure that the calories you are consuming include nutrient rich foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats.
We’ve talked about tracking macros on the blog, but if you’re trying to lose weight, it’s arguably more important to be aware of how many calories you are tracking.
In this post, we’ll go over food tracking 101 including what calories even are and why they are important, the benefits of tracking, and some suggestions for how to start including the best apps to use. Read on to learn more!
What are calories?
Calories have a bad reputation, and I want to change that. I think the best way to stop fearing something is by learning about it.
So, what even are calories?
Put simply, calories are the energy your body needs to do anything from climbing a mountain to shaking someone’s hand. Much like putting gas into your car to make it run, consuming calories from food makes your body function like it should.
Calories are present in each of the three major macronutrients including protein, carbs, and fat. While protein and carbs have an equal four calories per gram, fat contains more than twice that at nine calories per gram, and we need all three to make our bodies function.
The calories that you consume are either used by your body for energy, or they are stored for later in the form of body fat, which is different than the nutrient fat.
So really, it’s pretty simple. If you consistently eat more calories than you burn, your body will store more fat and you become overweight. On the flip side, if you burn more calories than you consume, your body will actually start to burn stored fat in place of dietary calories, causing you to lose weight.
But how many calories do you burn, and how many should you cut?
How many calories do you need?
The amount of calories you burn per day is referred to as your maintenance calories and can vary greatly per person from 1600-2300 per day for women and 2000-3000 per day for men on average. That’s a pretty big range, right?
That’s because the amount of calories your body burns is based on a number of factors including your age, height, current weight, activity level, and more.
To get a basic idea of what your body is burning, you can multiply your weight in pounds by fifteen, but this calculation doesn’t include all of those other factors. To make it simple, just use this easy calculator from the Mayo Clinic.
What this number tells you is the number of calories your body needs to maintain your current weight. In order to get into a deficit, you will need to consume less than this number, but by how much?
Well, weight loss experts agree that a healthy rate of weight loss is about 0.5-1lb per week. This is the sweet spot to maintain your weight loss long term and retain muscle as you shed pounds.
When you lose weight, your body is shedding muscle and water in addition to fat. It’s important not to lose weight too fast or risk muscle loss, dehydration, malnourishment, and slowing your metabolism causing you to gain weight quickly when you come out of your deficit.
Generally, you should consume about 500 fewer calories than you burn to maintain this rate of weight loss, but you should listen to your body and adjust depending on how you feel.
Benefits of tracking
Tracking your food and calories may not be for everyone, especially if you have a history of disordered eating or overly restrictive dieting, but used in the right way, tracking is a valuable tool that will help set you up for success even after you stop.
There are a few reasons that I recommend tracking your food as a nurse practitioner and medical weight expert. Some of those reasons include gaining insight into your food intake, empowering yourself to change your habits, and taking the guesswork out of losing weight.
Let’s get a closer look at each of these reasons.
It’s a reality check
The reality is that people are notoriously bad at estimating how much they are eating. In some studies, the majority of people underreported how many calories they were consuming by up to 2,000 calories.
What this tells us is that we just aren’t very good at intuiting what a proper serving size looks like, especially in the U.S. where we are routinely served 2-3 servings in a single meal at many popular restaurants.
One of the greatest benefits of tracking your food is by taking the guesswork out of how much you are consuming and forcing you to be honest with yourself about whether you are over or under-eating relative to your goals.
What’s great about this lesson is that it will carry on into life post-tracking. Tracking can be time intensive and it isn’t reasonable to think that you will track each and every bite of food you consume.
Instead, think of tracking as a way to learn what a healthy portion size looks like and you will be better able to intuit your food intake as you outgrow daily tracking.
Empower yourself to make a change
Once you get a better sense of what you are eating, you will find yourself with the knowledge you need to make a change for the better. While this reality check can initially be jarring, especially when you find out how many calories are in a single Oreo cookie. It is an amazing tool to have at your disposal.
Like I mentioned before, knowing what a portion size is supposed to look like is a powerful piece of knowledge that will help you to make necessary changes in your life.
Having this knowledge is the first step, and once you have it, it will be much easier to determine what needs to change in your own diet to reach your goals.
Are you regularly sabotaging your calorie count after dinner when you’re sitting in front of the television? Is that flavored latte on your way to work eating up calories that would be better spent on a high protein snack mid-afternoon? Do you notice that you feel hungry an hour after bingeing on a big plate of pasta?
Notice what your patterns are and figure out how you can make adjustments that work for your unique lifestyle.
If you want to learn more about how to incorporate healthy habits into your calorie tracking routine, check out my post all about how to eat in a calorie deficit.
It’s the best tool to lose weight
Just as I told you at the beginning of this post, there is only one real and proven way to lose weight and that is to eat in a calorie deficit.
Not only does tracking give you the tools to understand what you are consuming, but it creates a way to hold you accountable. Logging your food is not a test that you can cheat on, you are only really up against yourself and your habits (good and bad), after all.
Sometimes you need to see in black and white how your decisions affect your long term health including your weight, and food tracking gives you that accountability. Logging your food helps you to be accountable to yourself which in turn helps you to make better decisions.
Is that second helping of cake going to add enough to your day to sacrifice your longer term goals?
How to track
Tracking your food has never been easier than it is today. Put away your notebooks and calculators, because there are many tools at your disposal that will give you an much easier, more accurate count.
I recommend you invest in both a food scale and some standard measuring cups like these from Amazon. We have established that humans are pretty bad at estimating food intake, so take the guesswork out and use tools to get an accurate number
Once you have the tools you need to measure your food, download a calorie counting app and enter your food into there, it’s that easy!
I know that you won’t always be able to measure each and every bite that you consume, I don’t expect you to stop going out to restaurants entirely. However, as you log you will learn more about portion sizes and begin to be able to estimate without those extra tools.
In the meantime, just do your best and don’t worry too much.
Recommended apps
There are dozens of different apps that you can use to track your food, and some of them might be a better fit for you than others. How almost all of them work is by entering your demographic information like height, weight, gender, current weight, and goals.
The beauty of these apps is that over time and use they have built up a large database of common foods, allowing you to just enter in the name and quantity of the food.
For example you could enter 4oz of chicken, two cups of broccoli, and a cup of brown rice, and the app will tell you how many calories you’ve consumed.
Here are a few of my favorite apps and the unique benefits they offer.
Lose It!
Lose It! is an affordable option for those new to tracking. The lowest cost on this list at $40 per year for the premium plan, there are plenty of benefits for even the free plan.
The app has a large database and can scan barcodes for even easier logging. You can set your own plan or use their guided prompts to create a custom one. You can also connect the app to your Apple Watch, Fit Bit, or Garmin Watch or even manually enter exercise.
MyFitnessPal
MyFitnessPal has a limited free version or a premium version at $10 per month. It has similar features to LoseIt! with a large database and the ability to scan barcodes and communicate with your sport watch, but it doesn’t offer individualized plan, rather you set your goals yourself.
What it does offer though, is a large community of other users and coaches who you can talk to for support or feedback along the way.
Noom
What I love about Noom is that it not only offers all of the benefits of the other apps, but it guides you through a series of lessons and exercises that help you to better understand the science and psychology of weight loss. Not just a food tracker but a personalized health coach in your pocket.
It’s the most expensive option at this list at $42 per month for four months, but if you use my link you get a free trial and 20% off. Instead of counting calories though, Noom removes the number and gives you a daily goal of green, yellow, and orange foods.
It’s meant to teach you in the short term what you will carry on without the app in the long term, giving you the tools you need to be successful after you are finished logging.
That’s a Wrap
Whether you think logging your food is right for you or not, I hope that this post has given you enough information to make the right choice for you and your lifestyle.
You don’t need to eat an overly restrictive diet to see a change in your weight, in fact, you can really eat whatever you like as long as you aren’t eating too much of any one thing. Take the guesswork out of dieting and empower yourself to make the changes that will really make a difference in your health and in your body.
Whatever you choose, know that we are always here to help you through your health journey and answer any questions you might have along the way. Reach out to TelehealthNP any time for guidance or encouragement!
References:
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/calories/art-20048065
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/weight-loss/in-depth/calorie-calculator/itt-20402304
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