Does calorie counting improve your health? | ZOE Dailies with Christopher Gardner
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- Опубліковано 20 чер 2024
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Today, we’re talking about the century-old paradigm of weight management - calorie counting. Rooted in the law of thermodynamics, the notion is simple: consuming fewer calories than expended results in weight loss.
While seemingly straightforward, the practical application of calorie counting can prove challenging, with many of us underestimating our calorie intake or finding it difficult to maintain this diet long-term.
In this special episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan is joined by Christopher Gardner, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and the Director of Nutrition Studies at Stanford Prevention Research Center. Together, they explore this diet's complexities, addressing its potential and pitfalls.
If you want to uncover the right foods for your body, head to zoe.com/podcast and get 10% off your personalised nutrition program.
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Timecodes:
00:00 Introduction
00:42 Pre warning
00:52 Topic Intro
01:20 Why is calorie counting so popular?
02:45 Does it matter what you eat or only about total calorie intake?
04:18 What happens in your body when you eat fewer calories?
07:10 What does the science say now?
08:42 How does your metabolism change when you cut calories?
10:33 Why is the diet still so officially accredited?
11:34 What's the verdict?
12:40 Outro
Mentioned in today’s episode:
Energy compensation and metabolic adaptation: "The Biggest Loser" study reinterpreted from Obesity
Link: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34816...
Is there a nutrition topic you’d like us to explore? Email us at podcast@joinzoe.com and we’ll do our best to cover it.
Episode transcripts are available here: joinzoe.com/learn/category/po... - Наука та технологія
Where you went wrong is thinking you can only do one strategy at a time. It's not just CICO, it's CICO+. You pair calorie counting with other strategies like volumetrics to eat a nourishing, satisfying diet. You pair it with exercise to create a greater deficit and adapt your metabolism. So you don't have to be hungry or miserable, as implied. It's not reliant on willpower because the deficit is selected to be manageable. It's slow enough to duck under the majority of your body's defense mechanism. Biggest Loser is a disingenuous model to compare with. I don't think most people on CICO are saying eating Twinkies for all your calories for the rest of your life is a viable WOE, or extreme exercise is viable; that's reductionist and illogical. And yes, we know we are bad at counting calories; we are also bad at knowing how many calories we've burned; but we know this already, so you adjust and adapt using a feedback system to know if you are on track, that can be something as simple as weighing yourself each day. You also eventually learn what are the proper portion sizes for you. And when you hit your goal weight the exact same system works for keeping the weight off, so it's not something you have to abandon, your calorie deficit just moves to zero. If you start to regain weight then you reengage the calorie deficit. So it's not short-term either. It's an adaptive and effective approach when done sensibly. It's not a diet; it's a system of control. And yes, like most things, this works for some and not others, but that's very different than saying it doesn't or can't work.
It’s worked for me my entire adult life! I’ve tried vegan/keto/carnivore and no matter which diet I’m on, the only way I lose weight is if I have 1,100 calories or less. (I’m a short 62 yo)!
@@Ranch-girl🥰x I’m 4” 11” and VERY petite, 68 years old and eat at least double that. I don’t exercise excessively just brisk walking and weights and a healthy diet, with whole foods . The less you eat the slower your metabolism!
CiCo is all it is. Don't confuse facts with methods. Volumetrics is one method people can use to reduce their energy intake. There are other methods, but volumetrics is **probably** the one that is most likely to succeed. Thanks to Barbara Rolls, we know that the quantity of food we eat is *more* important than other measures where satiety and satiation is concerned. But never forget that there are no absolutes. Sadly, there are diseases, handicaps, impairments... that affect the satiation/satiety/hunger/appetite system and they can be extremely unpleasant, but not nothing can disobey the laws of physics.
@@Ranch-girl We are of the same age. I lost well over 60 kg and am keeping them off. All it takes is some willpower.
@@suenicholls5446 I hear that all the time, I just don’t know how to increase. I have tried “reverse dieting” However , I start gaining so quickly that I get scared and stop. (I also have hashimoto, which does help any. Struggle is real!!🥺
A few years ago I managed to lose a large amount of weight (mostly fat) just by counting calories, and it worked for me. I've since learnt more about nutrition, and I'm mainly focusing on eating nutritious foods, and avoiding ultra processed foods, and I'm maintaining my weight. For me counting calories helped me with understanding portion size. I used to eat way too much food, expecially rice, but by weighing foods, and understanding how many calories are in them, I was able to reduce my portion size, which worked for me.
Absolutely Brandon. I too lost 122lb calorie counting and learned which foods are high calorific dense foods and portion control . I’ve maintained my loss for 18 months on 1500 cals. I don’t exercise due to unstable angina so it’s also diet controlled for me.
@@Summerrose400 That's fantastic, keep it up 😊
@@brandon3872 Congratulations to both of you!
@@Summerrose400Congratulations to both of you. Well done.
@@BartBVanBockstaele thank you.
I grew up calorie counting and about 20 years ago. I gave up on the counting calories and just started eating better.
Growing up on it isn't good, it messes with your head, and you get fat. On the other side, once you quit, it's second nature, to make meals that will fill, but not supply too much energy.
I think calorie counting is a useful tool, in combination with (generally) adopting an overall healthier way of eating (whatever that means to you) and increased movement. It is just math, but to keep it sustainable it does have to involve lifestyle change.
I have lost 32 kg in less then 3 years and never used counting. Just eat whole food - no ultraprocessed junk, added sugar and refined grains.
@@wojtek1582 Good for you. Congratulations. It wasn't quite that easy for me, even if the results are similar.
@sweetthings is right. In order to keep it sustainable, lifestyle must change. The most difficult part of weight loss is not the loss, it is maintaining that loss. Once one learns to accept that and finds a way to actually do it, it becomes relatively smooth sailing. Just a bit/lot of willpower/self-discipline will do the trick.
What I can't understand is how is it so opaque to people that if you count calories in and out, AND ALSO monitor your weight and measurements AND ALSO eat generally the same somewhat reasonably limited list of foods, you CAN judge whether you are eating too much or too little. If you eat wildly different foods all the time, it will be hard to get a handle on it. If you never weigh yourself but only go off calories in/out, you might veer off course. But take this example:
I eat a lot of boiled cooled potatoes, trying to take advantage of the resistant starch phenomenon. I use MyFitnessPal to count calories, which does not take into consideration resistant starch. I don't know which type of potato I am using, and when I boil them, they take on a variable amount of water, meaning that the gram weight is not all that accurate. Furthermore, one person's calorie take from resistant starch might be very different from someone else's, because gut bacteria vary etc. Maybe in 400 calories per MFP of boiled potatoes, I'm getting 277 calories. Maybe I'm getting 404. I don't know THAT BUT I do know that when I eat this 2x/week every week for a year, in combination with the rest of my weight-conscious diet, I have maintained a 24" waist. I'm not getting fat doing this. BUT IF I were starting to get fat, I would eat LESS. Does this not make sense to people?
What is it that people don't get? You take the info that you have, and you OBSERVE how that affects you. You don't eat 1500 calories' worth of ultra processed garbage every day for 5 years without looking in the mirror ever, and then cry when you end up fatter. That's just moronic. Pay attention to how your body reacts to what you eat. Know as much as you can know, even though you can't know everything.
Don't just throw up your hands and give up. You get one chance. Come on now.
The concept you describe, though obvious and is certainly actionable, seems to be nearly way too difficult to most people. I an to am very bothered, when people who insist that "calorie counting don't work" tend to ignore the part with weight monitoring. But it seem like the reality is - it doesn't work because it's too difficult for a regular person to do it right and to adhere consistently to counting calories and weight monitoring... plus this strategy seem to trigger eating disorders in many.
@@arkytitan You have to be right, nothing else makes sense, but it blows my mind that someone could be willing to count calories -- and all the daily labor that that requires, weighing out every ingredient, never sharing food, entering every meal painstakingly into an app or writing it down -- but they aren't willing to get on a scale once/week and write it down. The apps even give you a place to record your weight. Heck, don't weigh yourself -- just acknowledge when your jeans stop fitting!! How is this so hard? LOL!!!
@@mockingbirdnightingale7169 people follow all sort of weird ultra-restrictive fad diets just for their apparent simplicity. And when it comes to weight loss, diet creators and adopters make up all sorts of trick to trick themselves implicitly into negative energy balance. But once you try to do it explicitly, this is a no-no! A tiny nuance of the level of school year 9 science assignment is already too much. So in that context calorie accounting "doesn't work", and we don't even get to the point of comparing food intake quantified and the nominal amount of calories - as Prof Gardner pointed out, people are horrible at just accounting calories accurately/honestly. And they seemingly refuse to learn...
I’m WFPB and I count calories and I weigh things. The only time I am hungry is occasionally during the 12-14 intermittent fasting so I eat a few calories (less than a hundred). But I don’t like losing more than 1.25 pounds a week. I don’t worry too much if I under eat or over eat for a day. 37 pounds since August.
But during COVID lockdowns and the BLM mostly peaceful riots I ate due to my high stress levels and gained 50+ pounds.
I don’t care if I have to count calories for the rest of my life, I’m retired. Besides counting calories makes me decide to choose less calories dense foods, like limiting the number of nuts I eat in one serving. Or beans or potatoes or fruit. Or even cooked whole grains.
My metabolism is shot. When I had a nutritionist who calculated my calories, I actually gained weight. She basically called me a liar so I took pictures of everything I ate for the next month and recorded the weight of everything I ate. Only then would she believe me my metabolism was slow. I wonder if having chronic fatigue syndrome has anything to do with it. I exercise at least 90 minutes at a day but it has to be moderate like water aerobics or walking 2.5 miles an hour. If I push too hard, I hit that brick wall and I’m even worse the next day.
Well done for your weight loss. You have obviously found out what works for you.
Your metabolism is fine. There simply are differences between people. We did not roll off a manufacturing belt. Exercise is *good* for you. *Very good*. Sadly, it does nothing for weight loss. That part is largely a myth and we have known that for decades. We now know for sure that this is the case, we just don't know all the details of why and how it is the case, but the mechanism isn't really important for daily life. Only the fact is.
Calorie counting is the only thing that keeps my weight down. Whenever I stop counting my weight goes back up.
I work hard on having a healthy diet, but even when I eat well (30 plants a week, 5 servings a day, 30 grams of fiber a day etc) I gain weight if I don’t keep my eye on Calorie intake and exercise.
Same here
I dropped my BMI from 30 to 28 using a free calorie counting app. My weight is now stable by watching portion size using modified Mediterranean diet. Losing more weight will require a more extreme approach such as the “fat purge” method of Dr. Roy Taylor.
I’ve lost over 9 stones (122lb) counting calories. I looked up my TDEE using a number of free sites and found my calorie count to lose weight or maintain weight. After my big loss I now still use Calorie counting to maintain.1500 calories for me at 120lb or 8st 8 to maintain. It’s worked and still working for me. I eat most of my calories in fruit , veg, fish , chicken and pulses. I avoid but do not cut out carbs ie bread, rice or pasta. I also eat chocolate on occasions!
I have lost 32 kg in less then 3 years and never used counting. Just eat whole food - no ultraprocessed junk, added sugar and refined grains.
I do something similar and have lost well over 60 kg and am keeping them off. If people would only finally start to understand what calories are (I learned this in junior high school, 50 years ago, this is hardly rocket science), and what they aren't, things would be different. Despite all the claims to the contrary, they are a wonderful tool and they are for the very reason Prof. Gardner stated. Get more than you need, and you will fatten up, and if you get more than your biology can handle, you will die. Get less than you need and you will lose weight or, if you have no reserves left, you will die.
@@wojtek1582 Good for you. Counting calories is a great tool but it isn't required. Counting calories does nothing for anyone, unless they use the knowledge it provides. If they don't need that knowledge, all the more power to them!
@@BartBVanBockstaele First of all you can't count them properly. What is written on a packaging is not precise - it can differ from reality by 20-30%t. Additionally each person will get slightly different amount of calories from the same food because our bodies have differences in digestion abilities. Additional thing is that those differences can also arise from the type of food. 100g of full almonds and 100g finely grinded almonds will have the same calories on packaging, but you will get less calories from eating full almonds then grinded. So I do not even try to count. I just eat good things :).
I went from 250lbs to 170lbs at 6’3” tall counting calories. I still count them and have maintained for over 3 years.
My weight loss and maintenance regimen includes:
. One 1-2 day water fast a month
(satiety reset optimization, autophagy)
. IF 12-14 hours a day
. Limited calorie intake 1400 calories daily on non-fasting days
. Prebiotic & probiotic foods (raspberries, blackberries, apples, pears, green veg like okra, artichoke, asparagus, leafy greens, cruciferous,
sweet potato, steel-cut oatmeal, flaxseed, barley,
peas, lentils, beans, aromatics
herbs, spices, 1 oz 85% dark chocolate,
kefir, yogurt, et al)
. Fish and chicken,
quinoa, chia, almonds, pistachios, other nuts, pumpkin seeds
1.6 g protein per kg of body weight
No high fructose corn syrup, very limited sugar, limited stevia, no other sugar sources.
. 4-5 hours exercise/week:
Walking, running, swimming level 2 HR
HIIT (once a week)
Resistance training
Exercise contributes to gut health.
Muscle mass increases calorie burn.
Interests:
Eye toward caloric intake
Satiety optimization fast, fiber, protein
Gut health for mood and health, microbiota diversity
Sufficient muscle strength & calorie burn
Blood glucose regulation
Blood lipid regulation.
Sounds awesome. Hope you get the outcomes you want.
Calorie counting is for athletes, bodybulders, etc people who need to be in exceptional shape. You won't get to exceptional shape by just eating Mediterranean diet and taking few walks a day.
Calorie counting isn't necessary to get to "normal" healthy shape. But 99% of males who have gotten super lean (like
absolutely true, and those people are also normally on gear to offset the muscle loss from those severe restrictions. plus body builders don't restrict all year round, they know they have to take breaks to get their thyroid hormones back up.
Oh yes it does
I cannot imagine how people can count calories daily. I've used Cronometer on a very few select days (out of curiosity rather than necessity), and it's SO MUCH WORK! I have to measure, record, and enter everything I eat during the course of a day. I have to keep washing and rewashing measuring cups and spoons. There are recipes to enter. I cannot imagine having to do this every day of my life. I also can't help but wonder if this discourages people from eating a wider variety of foods simply due to the extra effort required.
It's SO much easier to just avoid junk foods and eat only real foods.
Whatever floats your boat is the way to go. I tracked my intake in Excel for several years and switched to Cronometer several months ago because I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel and waste time writing a program that does largely the same for tracking (micro)nutrients.
Either way, I love it but I don't use the rather awkward cups-and-spoons method. I invested a whole 20 CDN in a scale: it makes life more precise and easy. What's not to love?
As for recipes: I don't eat recipes. I eat food. Recipes are just needless complications in my view.
But you are right in the "avoid junk and eating real foods". Life can be simple. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be? If that does the trick for you, and you are not scientifically curious, why bother?
It doesn't work for me. If I did that I would gain weight, and I would gain it fast. But, that does not make it wrong., just not as precise as we might want.
Hi. It's easy with MyFitnessPal. I scan barcodes of ready meals, of ingredients and when that is not viable (restaurant or home-cooked meals) I just add a guesstimate of kcals macros based on similar foods I know. It takes some effort but it certainly helps to understand what days I'm above maintenance and what days I'm below.
I do it on my fitness pal also. When a person starts it can be laborious but after a while it just becomes a habit and I always have the scales out as I don't use volume measurements. I treat my obesity as a disease and counting calories is just a small inconvenient treatment that does work by itself but also alongside other things.
@jasonhsu4711 - You need to have a system. I have a small rotation of 350 calorie breakfasts and 350 calorie lunches. If you have to think about it, if you have to actually count things all day long, you'll go off it very quickly. When I get home from work, I have a 200 calorie snack. So then I just need to plan a 1000 calorie dinner.
I've been doing this for the past 10 months. It worked great for the first 3 months - lost 25 pounds in that time. Then my metabolism slowed, and I lost another 10 pounds over the next 3 months. And then I've been stuck on a plateau since then. I've got a long way to go still, but I'm down 35 pounds and at least maintaining it. This also came with some fundamental diet changes - no more refined sugars. Haven't had a soft drink in almost a year. My overall health is massively improved, but the goal is still another 70 pounds. Summer outdoor exercise season is starting, so hopefully that will help.
@@danbance5799 Congratulations on losing all that weight! Given that winter is Weight Gain Season, simply maintaining the same weight for the past few months is like losing lots of weight. The warmer months that lie ahead will bring a smaller appetite and more chances to exercise.
I'm too skinny to give a hoot about calories.
I'm not sure if Christopher is familiar with the concept of diet breaks (used by most successful calorie counters). I got a feeling this episode might feature in one of Layne Norton's What the Fitness.
I was thinking the same thing!! Would love to hear what he thinks about this one!
I have diet breaks if I’m hungry more on one day or another or Thanksgiving or Christmas. Still counted those calories.
6:35 you don't have to go off of calorie counting - first you count for a deficit to lose weight, then you count for a balance to not regain, adjusting dynamically for balance or deficit based on weighing oneself regularly (haven't watched the rest of the video yet).
Well done. Titration is where it's at.
My n=1 anecdote: Calorie counting and a predominantly whole food diet actually worked extremely well for me... until it didn't. A 500kcal/day deficit (achieved mostly by targeting refined carbs) I tracked as closely as possible - both intake and expenditure using a wearable fitness tracker. There's a fair amount of unavoidable estimation involved of course when logging foods etc, but my efforts resulted in a steady loss at the targeted 2kg/month on average. At no time did I feel miserable or hungry, but rather I actually enjoyed the whole process and felt very motivated. I was also educating myself along the way - (nutritional, exercise science etc). Though it was a bumpy descent the weight loss down from a BMI=35 persisted in a pretty much linear fashion for 14 months until I hit a plateau - one that unfortunately persisted for weeks, and then months. I never actually reached my goal weight - BMI
The problem here is the word "theoretical". It is not theoretical, it is hypothetical, it is an educated guess, but still a guess.
IF you do not lose weight THEN you are not in an energy deficit.
The reason is simple: if that were not true, the observable universe as we know it, would not exist.
The sooner you realise that and the sooner you learn to accept it and live with the consequences, the sooner you will start to lose weight again.
Yes, there is a proven way to maintain weight and not gain weight back adjust your intake downward until you start to lose again or until you stop gaining.
It is that simple, which is not the same thing as easy. It can be very hard. But it is possible. It can be done. It has been done. It is being done.
@@BartBVanBockstaele Your response is sadly unhelpful and in fact quite condescending and fails to fully address the issue.
@@IanRushtonMusic Sure. You want to fully address the issue? Follow a course in elementary physics. Should take a few months. You can start by reading the works of Antoine de Lavoisier. He helped destroy the phlogiston theory which had held back science for a very long time.
While not necessarily all that easy to grasp, especially not when struggling with older/different ideas, this is well-established science, and the basics of it are taught in junior high school, at least in most of Europe. I don't know how the school system in other countries works so I have no valid opinion to have on that subject.
There is nothing condescending about reality. Nothing uplifting either. Reality simply is. Recognising it or not will not change it. Sadly, there are many people who are fooling the public into buying into completely erroneous hypotheses, they **seem** to be mainly in the USA, but certainly not exclusively.
@@BartBVanBockstaele I'd like to offer you some language tips to help you avoid coming across as both condescending and patronising: Emphasizing the distinction between "theoretical" and "hypothetical" feels pedantic and dismissive of my point. Phrases like "the sooner you realize" and "start to lose weight again" imply I'm not already trying or making progress. Your assertion that it's "simple" (though hard) dismisses the emotional challenges of weight loss. Then, starting with "Sure": This came across as immediately dismissive, minimising my ongoing struggles with continued weight loss. Following with "You want to fully address the issue?" implies that I'm not currently serious about tackling my weight loss, which again is rather dismissive. Offering unsolicited advice by telling me to take a physics course and study Lavoisier (an 18th century Chemist) feels rather pushy and totally ignores the emotional complexities of struggling with weight loss. Weight loss is a complex issue -it's influenced by numerous factors, not just basic physics. By the way, I have tertiary qualifications in... yup, physics. Your entire response suggests you have access to superior knowledge and I need to somehow catch up. Phrases like "recognizing reality" and "well-established science" feel like lecturing and imply I'm somehow ignoring the truth. Hope that helps.
That does sound discouraging. What I hear from intermittent fasting, bodybuilding and other fitness-orientated communities, keeping the same deficit for a looooong time is much harder than cycling through some months of deficits, some of maintenance, some of bulking up. I hope you find some method that works for you without thinking about hunger and food all the time!
I think calorie counting can be a useful tool but it has to be used as one element of a holistic approach to eating and nutrition. You also have to be incredibly disciplined and make sure you're weighing all your food accurately and ensuring that you record every single thing that passes your lips. You also have to be aware that there's a considerable amount of variation in the weight of pre-packed foods vs what it says on the label.
I've been overweight or obese through pretty much my whole adult life. I've struggled with compulsive binge eating (potentially related to ADHD) and one of the ways in which I've been trying to manage that is by keeping a detailed food diary. I have an app on my phone which makes the process much easier. I've done lots of fairly extreme diets in the past, including some total meal replacements, where you're eating ~600 calories per day. I've always put the weight back on, plus some more, afterwards, because I reverted to the same eating patterns as before.
My approach now, rather than focusing on losing weight, is to eat a healthy balanced diet, where calorie counting is just one element of that. It's a good way of highlighting to you that there are foods, particularly snack foods, which are not at all filling but can add hundreds of calories to your daily intake. For me, it's helpful as it makes me consider foods which are more likely to be filling but have a lower caloric total. Essentially, moving towards whole foods with an emphasis on low or unprocessed fruit and veg. I'm also not trying to eat to a drastic deficit, but rather eating in a way which would be a 'management' level at a healthy weight for my height and age. It means I'm very slowly losing weight, which would be unsatisfying if I felt I was restricting myself, but instead I feel much better overall. By improving what I eat and trying to hit the right balance of macronutrients, I'm moving towards a healthier weight while also feeling satisfied with better energy levels overall.
There's a certain amount of ingrained social engineering around weight loss, which was touched on very briefly here. The idea that an excess of bodyweight represents some kind of moral failing in an individual, for which there needs to be a kind of penance in the form of extreme restriction and a period, effectively, of enforced suffering. The idea that overweight people are lazy, stupid, and have no willpower. Yet we live in a world where our shelves are full of addictive foods which are designed to make us hungrier while depriving us of nutrients. Until the world wakes up and realises that punishing people for being overweight only makes people more overweight, and instead tackles the issue as part of a broader approach to overall health and wellbeing (both physical AND mental), I don't think the trend will be reversed.
Great video that begs for a mention of the BROAD study lol!
I was 47 when I started calorie counting & it worked but my personal issue was the numbers got way more important than they should have. I kept eating less and less and watching the scales go down every day spiraled to a point where I ended up with a restrictive eating disorder.
Since being in recovery, my weight has gone back to where it began, which I'm not thrilled about so I tried calorie counting again my it seems my body at this time isnt liking it because it started a binge eating episode.
I've now ditched Calorie counting for now & trying Intuitive Eating, and I'm finding I'm more or less maintaining by listening to my body and feeding it nutritious foods.
Basically, what works for some might not work or be beneficial to others.
I never in my wildest dreams thought I would end up with an eating disorder in my late 40's.
In 2017 I got a surprise diagnosis of diabetes. It shouldn't have been such a surprise - I was 60 and obese but felt in good health generally. It was then that I started to understand just how screwed up the generally promoteded "Healthy Eating Advice " was. The "fat is bad go low fat" has meant anyone who has followed that advice has eaten ever more carbohydrates and in the case of ready to eat meals many of those carbs have been sugars.
That is triggering the obesity and diabetes surges of today. To oversimplify: High carb means heavier demand for insulin on the pancrease. Insulin drives conversion of glucose in the blood into fat in body cells. This drives weight gain. As fat buil, d up continues the cells become less able to absorb more fat - so the pancrease produces more insulin to push the absorption along. This is the path of insulin resistance that eventually leads to overload of the pancresas and inability to produce insulin. AKA type 2 diabetes. From then on the consequences of diabetes such as retinopathy, damage to the circulation, cardio vascular disease follow.
I was shocked when I first saw the standard advice for diabetic diets - 25% of starchy food sounded stupid and my first few days following those diets and measuring blood sugars confirmed how wrong that was.
I switched to low carb dieting and for the first few months I ate somewhere between 800 and 1000 calories a day. Within weeks my blood sugar was prediabetic and within months it was in the normal range. I relaxed my diet a bit but still remain pretty low carb.
I still roughly estimate overall calories but I find it much more important what I eat than how much.
I counted calories for years as someone who was overweight until my late teens. The sad reality is now as a 30 year old, I've only in recent years realised that if I just eat real unprocessed foods then I can eat what I want and I'm no longer worried about my wieght.
I became anorexic at 17 and for about 10 years I was always so worriwd about the weight on the scale and trying not to be too heavy, but actually you can look at elite athletes as role models as people who are not light, yet they look like they must be eating low calories. The reality is someone like Lionel Messi has a BMI of over 24.5, on the boundary of overweight, and he looks like he must think about calories. In actuality, he trains hard and eats enough to build lean muscle mass and is why athletic people can say they struggle to eat enough because they haven't been damaged by calorie counting.
If you only focus on low calories then you will slow down your metabolism, you'll lose muscle mass and bone density, you'll feel worse, your body will be in a state of stress and all of this for pretty terrible results. Calorie counting probably should only be a thing for skinny people, but if you want to lose body fat, just eat real unprocessed foods, dont worry about macro nutrients, just eat a mixture of healthy fats, unprocessed carbs and lean proteins and just enjoy your life!
Calorie counting also made me yo-yo and binge eat and be addicted to sugar as I was eating low calorie highly processed foods with alternative sugars and then binging on sugar every weekend or every other weekend. This really ruined my life and I would encourage people to trust their body and eat real food and stay moderately actice. Enjoy life!!
Yes, I fully agree with you. Counting calories can be harmful for many people. Many companies producing junk food promote that approach to move the burden of overweight on people, to make them think that they "do not have strong will". The reality is that you can eat a lot if you do not eat junk which they produce. I achieved proper weight exactly the same way as you - eating whole foods in such amount that I do not feel any hunger.
@wojtek1582 I'm glad you had success with the same approach. It was very scary for someone counting calories to trust their body and their hunger queues can be confusing, but unless you free yourself, you will be trapped for life by an approach that doesn't maximise your health outcomes. Naturally skinny people don't have stronger willpower, maybe there is some genetic influence, but they self regulate and don't count calories and many overweight people are conscious of calories or macro nutrients.
@@Anonamoosemouse Skinny people having more willpower is largely a myth, indeed. However, we should not make the mistake and turn this around and say willpower is *therefore* useless. Fat people like myself *need* willpower. Everything starts and ends with it.
Wow. I subscribed because I thought this is a scientific unbiased channel. This series just shows how biased Zoe and Christopher are.
No arguments, no studies, cherry picking.
A lot of people who are in great shape count calories. So it does work. If it didn't work, it wouldn't work for anyone.
Telling that counting calories doesn't work because people don't track properly is like saying that tv doesn't work because people can't use a controller. What kind of scientific argument is that from one of the leading experts in the field?
On argument about sugar vs chickpeas, Christopher uses his intelligence to manipulate audience. 100 kcal from sugar is the same as 100 kcal from chickpeas when it comes to weight loss/gain. Satiety is not even in the question, health is not in the question. Question is will it cause the same weight loss/gain and the answer is yes.
Another thing, people who count calories don't necessarily eat unhealthy or restrict themselves. What kind of assumptions are these?
This video is not informative, doesn't discuss the concept, doesn't explain the science. Please do these right or don't do them.
I’m finding it worrisome that in none of your podcasts it is mentioned that in order for someone to lose fat, they need to burn more calories than they consume.
Calorie counting is a tool, not a diet and it needs to be used in combination with other factors, such as drinking enough water, consuming adequate fiber and protein, managing how much a calorie deficit will be, maybe using diet breaks etc.
I understand that Zoe has a service to sell and at the end of the day the podcast’s purpose is to sell this service, but this is boarder-line misinformation. Your listeners hold you to a high standard and once you lose your credibility it is very hard to earn it back.
(edited for spelling mistake)
If you eat what Zoe promotes you do not need to count calories and worry about creating deficits. People are too fixated on counting and deficit. Zoe says that you should focus on healthy, high quality foods instead.
Christopher was quite clear, people in general don't know how to properly count callories (leaving alone that information on packaging can be up to 30% off).
Focusing on healthier diet / change of life style, is much more benefical in long run.
@@wojtek1582 If someone eats healthy high-quality foods (which is what Zoe promotes) and consumes more calories than they burn they will still gain weight.
However I do agree that in most cases it is counterproductive to be fixated on a colored deficit.
I just find it strange that it is never mentioned in any of the Zoe podcasts that someone cannot lose weight if they do not consume less calories than they burn.
@@lynchs2441 It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Someone could count calories AND at the same time focus on a healthy lifestyle.
Christopher was anything but clear because he implies that other diets do not have the cons of the “calorie counting diet”, whatever this diet is supposed to be...
What all diets that help someone lose weight successfully have in common, is that they make you consume less calories that you burn. If this isn’t done counting calories directly, it is achieved through an indirect way, either by having you visually measure your meals or by picking foods that have low calorie density and/or increase satiety. 
Also if you cook your own meals and therefore use individual foods/ingredients, the calorie information on the label will never be 30% off on what you are using. This might be the case in some premade meals or ultra processed foods.
@@apapadopoulos9914 The point is those foods make it much less likely that you will eat so many calories :)
Calorie-controlled diets do work. If the correct amount is calculated, and followed, then successful weight loss is the result. Maintenance calories then need to be calculated (and regularly readjusted) and complied with. The problem is that it is an extremely fastidious way of controlling your weight that is almost impossible to follow long term.
I agree with everything, except the fastidious part.
So, why is weight loss possible? If our bodies respond to less food by dropping our metabolic rate, why does this not apply to any reduction in food intake?
Great interview and fascinating to hear Dr Gardner addressing “satiety” issues related to calorie-count diets. (7 - 8.5 mins). But it puzzles me that he (& your good selves at ZOE) continue to side-line the “thorny” subject of meat (including the red variety) & also ketogenic diet systems (for their “supposed” associated CVD risks etc.)
I can’t think of a more enduringly “satiating” food than meat…and the saturated and monounsaturated fats they contain. Let alone all the highly bio-available, blood-quality enhancing vitamins and minerals they provide.
The real point is that satiety will *always* be a problem for weight loss, with two important exceptions:
1. you discover a way of eating that leaves you tolerably hungry
2. you have a disease or an abnormality that eliminates your hunger
As for satiety, if it is defined as absence of hunger and the drive to eat and not as 'fullness', it is one of the most mysterious subjects we have. Just about none of the dietitians' boilerplate of "feeling full for hours" or "feeling full and satisfied" or "feeling fullER for longER" have any universal meaning.
On a personal level, you may be satiated by meat, it is very possible. I, on the other hand, got hungrier than ever when I ate it, and blew up like an even fatter balloon than I already was. Sadly, we are chemical soups and none of us are identical.
Thanks. Your final sentence is certainly true.@@BartBVanBockstaele
@@Beatrice-nx5ldChristopher Gardner is an openly declared vegan. But listen carefully to what he is saying. He has not, and AFAIK has never, vilified a non-vegan diet. He even feeds his own children a non-vegan diet.
Thanks👍@@Beatrice-nx5ld
To say that chick peas vs sugar proves that it doesn’t work is missing the point. Counting calories makes you realize that you should eat the satiating food because you are restricting calories. And it is not necessarily for 500 or a thousand calories, losing weight is a matter of a few hundred calories a day. Anyway counting calories is not a diet, it is a tool so the whole premise is faulty….lol
The one thing that Gardner said in this rings true all through every one of these, even for the double-thumbs down Carnivore diet from yesterday; Any particular diet can work for some people and no one diet can ever work for everyone.
As for calories, one thing that wasn't mentioned is the amount of calories stated to be in something can be out by quite a lot, but it stands true that the only way to lose fat is to be in a calorie deficit so the body is forced to draw from its stores (glycogen and fat)
Having said that though reading labels and looking up calories for a food, then writing down what you are going to eat can be beneficial both in teaching which foods have loads of calories, and also as a little barrier to actually eating something - do I really need that 100 calorie cookie? Nah, I can't be bothered writing it down and feeling guilty about it later... skip!
That's because "works or doesn't work" is not used in the right way. The diets, all of them, *work* for everybody as long as they create an energy deficit. BUT: one diet can be less unpleasant than another for a specific person and therefore be more or less doable for that person.
@@BartBVanBockstaeleThat is exactly how I understand it as well 😄
A calorie is a calorie. All the stuff about feelings is another issue. Only calories basically matter. Yes there may be differences in how many we get out of foods compared to the method of scientific measuring calories in a food item. Bu the numbers do not matter!
You obsess about the weak minds and feelings they do not alter the facts, eat less to reduce weight or stop adding it.
It is not rocket science and does not even need to use real calorie counting. Just eat less than you were. Eat the same every week. Then take some bits out you are getting fewer cals. It is that easy. If you once ate 5 fish fingers a meal, change to 4. No ned to be accurate in cals. Just eat less overall. that is calorie control. Easy, long tern changing. If you lose weight for a while you can then add back an item that was cut back. find the balance. No label reading needed.
That is certainly so. Counting calories *can* make it easier (less difficult) though, especially for people who have trouble with excessive hunger. But just because one *can* count calories does not mean that one *must* do so.
the calorie count problem lies on the labels itself, none of them are true really, so you don't really know how much you are actually eating and worse, how much your body is actually absorbing.
If it's just calorie counting, it's mostly about the maximum volume you can eat at maintenance. Once you have educated yourself, you can just go off type and volume. It should be at a point where you are force feeding or nearly. Then you can treat yourself by skipping a meal every so often, if you have fat stores to supplement your diet. If your talking CICO that gets difficult for pretty much everyone, cause working out calories out is pretty hard, but it can be done on a maintenance diet, when you know what's coming in
While calorie counting is difficult, calorie awareness can be much more sustainable. It's much easier to look at the calories in a meal (esp ready meals) or calorie density of a product and make a decision to swap with a less dense alternative.
I just listend to Dr. Spector. I lost 10 kilos - my goal. I feel great, and it's been a year. Thanks ZOE.
How do you count calories with home cooked meals? For example. I make a veggie stew and divide it into portions. Each portion doesn't have the exact same components. One might have a little more eggplant, another might have more potato, a third might have more Brussel sprouts. Etc.
This is why I don’t calorie count. Don’t overthink it, have a wide varied diet full of vitamins and minerals cutting out ultra processed food or keeping it to a bare minimum. Do workouts and get good sleep.
@@awolf913yes fruit and vegetables need not really be “counted” but being sure you’re eating as many as possible is useful. Conversely being aware of all the junk is helpful too while avoiding being too judgmental but rather informed
The exact calorie count of an individual meal is unlikely to make that much impact on your weight, so you can just try to make your portions even, divide the total by your number of portions, and copy that to all the days in which you're planning to eat that meal.
As long as you keep each portion roughly equal, there's no need to overthink it. If one has 80 calories more than your estimate, another will have 80 calories fewer. It evens out overall.
I don't eat junk
I sometimes 'calibrate' ie remind myself what a pound of nuts looks like.
That sounds rude....
Chris knows the only way you lose weight is in a energy deficit. Even if you are not good at counting calories, if your not losing weight, just drop your cal target further until you do lose weight.
So if you have health issues because of obesity what can you do then? Please tell us the answer
Lose weight. Some of the issues *might* go away, some of the issues *might* be reduced in severity and some of the issues *might* stay the same and yes, new issues *might* appear. Weight loss is generally beneficial, but it does come with a price. Whether that price will be noticeable, cannot be predicted and that is the very reason medical supervision is usually recommended.
You make zero sense.
@@joelgarf OK. I'll reformulate: go to a doctor. Dealing with health issues is why they do gruelling studies.
It was a Consultant that told me this. I have issues with my thyroid and some other things.
@@joelgarf I see. Since you didn't say what 'this' is, nobody can possibly give you a reasonable answer. Let's be clear, you don't have to, those are simply the facts.
That said, overweight IS a very important cause of health problems. Losing it is all but guaranteed to increase your chances of successfully dealing with them. Also: never forget that people become ill for a multitude of reasons. Just because diet is the cause of a a lot of popular problems, does not guarantee in anyway that you are the victim of diet-caused disease and besides, even IF you are, you will still need treatment for those problems, possibly forever, possibly for a long time, not so IF you very lucky.
I developed disordered eating habits in my late teens because I thought I was fat, thanks to my grandmother's comments in the 1970s. I look back at pictures, and I was not fat at all. I lived off asparagus soup, all bran and a slimming drink. At university I lost weight through walking miles and essentially stuck to a 1200 calorie diet . This strategy took me through 5 pregnancies and another 30 years. Food has never been my friend or something to enjoy. A combo of prolapsed discs in my spine, hip issues leading to loss of mobility and menopause led to huge weight gain in recent years despite controlled eating, so I cut it back to 800 calories and dropped from an 18 to a 14. However, I still have a massive stomach and cannot get down to a size 10 just by counting calories. I have an autoimmune disease, and every medic I see tells me I must lose weight as if I don't know that. I have tried intermittent fasting and eliminating carbs and sugar whilst calorie counting. Still stuck. Now trying again, still calorie counting but cooking all my own food from scratch. Now the scales are moving down again. It is painfully slow, but all calories are not the same in my experience.
Why do people try to make this so complicated, a calorie is a calorie does a unit of measurement. Saying that two calories aren't the same as like saying that two drops of water aren't the same. And a calorie of chickpeas will have more bulk than a calorie of sugar, but that reasoning doesn't mean the counting calories doesn't work. It absolutely does work eat more than you expend and you gain weight, eat less than you expend and you lose weight.
You can eat only table sugar for a week in 1000kcal defecit and you would lose a kilo body fat but this is not your wise move considering it will not improve your health and also from losing weight perspective, you can have much easier and tastier version of this with other sources of food. But if you want to prove a point you might do this and you will see the result
Exactly, there are no vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein etc in sugar. We should focus on eating nutritious foods.
Hey ! I’m an eggetarian but don’t consume any dairy products or whey protein. I consume plant protein powder but. So should I supplement with BCAA?
Grelin is the hormone triggered that makes us want to eat. So, it’s about training those craving hormones and that is done with eating less unnecessary carbohydrates and no ultra processed food, since that triggers Grelin to eat more when our body doesn’t need it. So what we’re really talking about is addiction. 🧠 Counting calories came about with the invention of ultra processed foods. Yes, a person can be a glutton on whole, unprocessed foods but that type of gluttony is of sugar and starchy carb foods. Low starch and low sugar foods usually don’t trigger Grelin that way.
What way ?
Calorie counting is a tool, not a diet, ffs! For ANY long term solution you need to actually know what you're eating. The point isn't to eat half a hamburger instead of a whole one. It's to be able to make informed choices about what parts of your diet you can SUSTAINABLY change to achieve the desirable calorie intake without turning it into a stoic willpower exercise.
So far out of all these diets in this series he hasn't agreed with any of them. What's the chances the last diet in the series is a vegan diet which he'll think is the best diet ever😂
My guess: Mediterranean
The Zoe diet?
And btw, the most successful diabetes programme around headed by Prof Roy Taylor is based on calorific deficit.
Yes, and he is thoroughly hated by many for showing that weight loss in practice is not rocket science and has never been.
I did calorie counting for a period of time to learn what food has which also helped me understanding food density.
It's not comfortable to feel hungry and can make you anxious, but counting calories can also cause anxiety. Both can cause other kinds of heath issues.
More clickbait garbage. Sure there are lots of variables in metabolic states but energy burns at a defined physiological rate - that is a fact. Calorie counting can be a useful tool but only one of many. Not really sure why Zoe is now straying well into the area of pseudoscience - well I am actually - clicks.
A calorie is not a calorie
If that were true, a meter would not be a meter, a kilogram not a kilogram and a computer would not exist.
I think this area is a failure of language or more accurately a failure to use precise, well-defined language.
Does counting calories in isolation do anything? Of course not, if I count 5000 calories a day and do nothing else, obviously nothing can change - so stop calling something else entirely "counting calories".
Do people count calories in the food they consume honestly and accurately? No - is this a failure of the approach? No - so stop saying "counting calories doesn't work" when all that this describes is people being wrong, not even whether they have tried to change anything.
Get 100 well-paid volunteers in secure lab conditions for a year, calculate each person's Basal Metabolic Rate and feed them (proper food, not ridiculous ideas like all sugar) a carefully calibrated 250 calories below their BMR for a year. If any of them does not lose weight in a perfectly predictable manner, publish your findings and collect your Nobel Prize for discovering a hidden form of energy and overturning one of the foundations of physics.
If you say "but this is not real life" - no, real life is full of good intentions, incompetence, self-deception and boredom or habit eating, this is what we should say, not "counting calories does not work".
Be precise with words and suddenly there is no mystery.
I completely agree and usually say something similar. Counting calories does nothing for anyone. Using the knowledge gained from it does. As the saying goes: knowledge is *not* power, but using that knowledge is.
Counting cal's is like your computer... garbage in garbage out on your data! I think an athlete who is looking for peak 🗻 performance will most likely do it right but a less active pearson will just lie to themselves! 😢 As I've seen. I'm doing a low (250) cal deficit for over three yrs now & the goal is to get to my maintain weight in the summer of 2025 as I get back to my high school weight. 🏆 While I have had a deficit daily high of (759) cal's for July 2022 & my 1st recent overage after 21 months of deficits with a 214 daily cals this January it has to do with the climate as with the colder 🥶 weather, less outdoor 🔆 light & working 👨💼 more ⏰ hours in those best limited hours with me getting out to just walk. You need to find your level of extra steps to equal your appetite & it doesn't have to be 10k either. Thr more you do the higher your intake. I don't get discouraged just look at what caused the issue for the future month & than improve in the next months data. Don't worry about a daily or weekly miss it's all about the month. During the month I have 80/20 rule of missing any daily deficit 20% of the time but have had lows of 54% still showing a monthly deficit & that's a win for me. As long as I have (1) cal deficit I'm good. Overages always happens at an event with over eating or at home with chips, sometimes chocolates & in the summer at time's it's the 🍨 ice cream. You need to treat 😊 yourself too! So one days miss does not hurt your month or year as my results show. I could not have had 3 yr's of performance without knowing & counting my cal's. One example is a slice of pizza 🍕 every place is different in weight, soduim & sugar they give you. Last January 2022 I started making my own 🍕 and removing over 17 days of cal's from store bought. This year I'm looking at ingredients & removing foods with hidden sugars like maltodextrin & pick healthier products. I hope this may help some people and the 1st step is to believe you can do it, write ✍ down some goals like wight or waistline & take it slow to be successful. Turn it into a game to change your lifestyle as it's your health & longevity. Good ❤ luck!
I can't count that far ..... 😂
You don't eat calories. It's a measurement of heat calculated in a machine from the 1870's, and we now know in 2024 how wildly innacurate trying to apply that measurement to something as complicated as human biology really is. Your allowed to say that now. If there is one measurement that needs to go, it's calories. Once you start putting a blanket measurement like that across _every single potential food_ , and start trying to do calculations for things like global hunger while fiddling with macros, you can get extremely deficient populations. We need to be _crystal clear_ about what foods actually do what to the human body, especially children, and not what we would like it to do because of, reasons.
Jonathan, I really believe you when you say you want to 'improve the health of millions' during your intros, but my goodness having Christopher just subtlety shit on every single non-plant food and telling the audience 'ur doin it wrong' while citing Kevin Hall for days on end isn't exactly helping.
it says clearly at the begin if you’re into or believe any diet in the video and found is good for you or disagree don’t follow, the idea of following a ‘diet’ like your football team is already idiotic to me but I do understand people want simple solutions especially in the US where meat consumption and calories counting is a cultural dogma
He's not doing that. He doesn't like restrictive diets where you narrow down what you eat, which is eventually non-sustainable. He wants people to eat a wide range of mostly less processed food that can be sustained for the rest of their lives. Meat is clearly part of that, if you want to eat it.
@@gjcoop5625 okay.
@@starmanjesus5679I agree, the concept of 'diet wars' are infuriating. I didn't realize how political this whole thing was until fairly recently, and why the paradigm is so hard to change even as metabolic disease skyrockets. You need to start from a place of truthseeking with human biology in mind, then come to a diet secondarily. You don't let externalities, personal proclivities, old science or politics get in the way of how nature functions.
Exactly how is Christopher Gardner shitting on non-plant foods when he feeds non-plant foods to his own children and admits so openly?
You can tell from his voice that this is just working up to a predecided conclusion. It's not a real scientific look at calorie counting. :( Disappointing from Zoe. I do sort of agree with the conclusions, but the intonation feels insulting, like talking down down child? Not science.
It does work, it is just hard work so unsuitable for lazy people.
Not helpful,.
Chriist it's irritating!