How calorie counting can work for you!

The 2 dreaded words for those looking to lose weight or build muscle - Calorie counting. It can be quite daunting, time consuming and stressful to mention a few of the potential feelings/effects of counting your calories.

You may even develop a hatred for it as you start to uncover how many more calories are actually in the foods you enjoy so much, especially as the reality kicks in that you can’t have some of your favourite foods if you are wanting to get closer to your goals.

Realistically counting calories is the only way you can 100% guarantee you get to your goal providing you do it correctly and record information correctly.

However as I say to all of my clients, you are far better off tracking your calories as a way to learn and understand what is in what foods and how you can incorporate certain foods into your diet and to continue to be successful in your journey.

There is no ‘bad’ or ‘good’ food inside of a diet, there is only a good or bad diet. It all comes down to taking accountability for tracking your own calories, if you don’t track 100% accurately you run the risk of over or under eating on calories and all the macro nutrients which can be the difference of you getting closer or further away from your goals.

Once you have decided to track your calories the next obstacle is to decide how many calories to actually aim to consume, set them too high and you will gain body fat, set them too low and your body can start to eat away at any muscle mass you have.

If you are unsure you should definitely seek help from a professional that can give you a calorie target that is going to help you get closer to your goal.

A loose rule of thumb I use for myself and clients is a 10% reduction of your TDEE for anyone trying to lose weight/body fat, and a 10% surplus/increase on your TDEE for anyone trying to build lean muscle/gain weight. Both come with bespoke protein targets dependent on the individuals weight/goals/current protein intake and if there are any health issues.

The main point to take away from this is everyone can benefit from tracking calories, simply by allowing it to teach them what foods calories are in what foods and how to take back some control of your weight management and diet.

If you are unsure do not try go at it alone, that is the worst thing you could do. Seek some professional advice, drop me a message using the button below and I am more than happy to help you work all this out :)