88: Why Calorie Counting Fails Every Time

Michael Kummer: A couple of weeks ago, my wife came to me and said, Hey, you know, I really, I've, I've gained some weight. I'm not liking it, and I think I wanna start tracking calories so I know how many calories I can eat so I can lose that weight again. And I'm like, I, I almost lost it because I'm like, what? Tracking calories is not gonna work.

It's a colossal waste of time. And I realized that there is this misconception out there that if you just eat a few calories less. Then what you burn, you're gonna lose weight. It's simple math, right? And it, it appears so simple, so straightforward on paper, but it absolutely does not work. So I decided, you know what?

Let's record a podcast, uh, episode and really dive into the details on why counting calories is never, never going to work for the purpose of losing weight. Welcome to the Premiership podcast. And so stick with me because this is interesting and I, I hope it'll open your eyes in terms of why calorie counting is not gonna work.

And I'm gonna offer some alternatives that are significantly more likely to yield the desired benefits than it is to count the calories. And one of the things, there are so many different factors, but the, one of the most important ones is that your energy balance, the calories you burn. Versus the calories you consume.

You know, those are the two parts of the equation. Now, the calories that you burn, those are actually two separate numbers. One is the basal metabolic rate. That's the number of calories that you burn just out of the box by just breathing without any activity. So if you are, if you were to lay in bed, lie in bed, and just breathe slowly and be there for 24 hours.

You know the amount of calories that you burn by doing that, by just living is your basal metabolic rate. The problem is that nobody knows what their basal metabolic rate is because you would have to measure it by measuring the amount of oxygen you inhale, the amount of CO2, you exhale by wearing a mask and.

That will help you then determine your basal metabolic rate. Nobody, well, there are some people who do that, but for most people, the maturity of people who wanna track calories to lose weight have no idea what their basal metabolic rate is. Instead, what they do is they rely on, on numbers, you know, based on your age, based on your weight, based on, you know, whatever your smartwatch tells you.

You know? The problem is those estimates. Are not accurate. They might have a margin of error of up to 30%. So if you are trying to consume 20% fewer calories than what you burn, you are within that margin of error. You might be low 20%, or you might not be, you might be plus 10%. You know, you just don't know because you don't have an accurate basal metabolic rate.

What's even more complicated than your BMR is to measure your active calorie burn. You know, so, you know, when you exercise, when you move, when you, you know, just walking ordinary house, you know, anything that you do beside lying around quietly and still and not moving, that would trigger the burn of active calories.

And again, you don't know what your active calorie burn is. No. None of the numbers that you are getting from your smartwatch, from your whoop, from your whatever fitness tracker you are wearing. Is accurate Tracking activity or active calorie burn is incredibly important, ev or incredibly difficult, even with the most sensitive and scientifically accurate devices.

So now you have a, an unknown BMR and unknown active calorie burn, and that combined has a huge margin of errors. In other words, you do not really know. How many calories you burn on a given day. Now the other side of the equation is how many calories you consume. You know, there you might, you might say it's a little bit easier because you can just look at the nutrition label of the foods that you consume and you know, get an idea of how many calories they have.

Well, the problem is, as per FDA regulation, the food labels have a margin of error of. 20%, you guessed it. So there is also plus minus 20% restaurant meals, you know, if you make that part of your calorie tracking can be off by 50%. In food databases are not a hundred percent accurate either because the problem is, you know, scientists, what they do is, uh, they use bomb calor.

Ca calor meters to determine how many calories, how many energy, how much energy a food has. Well, the problem is the human digestive system is not a bump. Calor meter, you know it, it works significantly. It's more complex than that. And so there is also a margin of error, even though one could argue it might be less than the 20%.

Let's say it's 10%. But nonetheless, there are merchants of error in all factors of that equation, and that in itself. Tells you already that it is impossible from a just purely math perspective or statistical perspective to say, I wanna consume 20% fewer calories than what I burn because you don't know what those numbers is.

But it gets even more complicated than that.

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Before any more sales decide to retire. So here's the thing, a hundred calories of bread behaves in the body differently than a hundred calories of meat.

What I mean by that is, generally speaking, the body. Uses energy to digest food and the energy requirements differ depending on the type of foods, specifically on the type of macronutrient. So in other words, the body needs more energy to digest protein. It needs a little bit, well significant less energy to, to uh, digest carbs and it needs even less energy to.

Digest fat in real numbers. That means 20 to 30% of the calories of of protein calories are burned by a thermogenesis, meaning that the digestion itself uses up calories so that only 70 to 80% of the calories from the protein remain available to the body. After digestion, whereas 90 to 95% of the carbohydrates remain available for digestion.

So if you track, if someone you know, let's say burns 2000 calories a day. And they consume 2000 calories worth of bread or 1,900 calories worth of bread to have a caloric deficit. Whereas someone else, um, burns 1900 or consumes 1900 calories worth of meat, then their energy balance is gonna be significantly different because a couple of few hundred calories are gonna be available less for that person who.

Decided to consume meat instead of bread. So that in itself skews your calculations, but none of the, none of the apps, none of the trackers that just use the calories, you know, as reported by a food database, take the Thermo the Thermogenetic effect into account, so you are again, off by 10 to 30%. More importantly, then going back to the different.

Micro proteins. Um, micronutrients protein is not only used for energy in the body, it's predominantly used for building muscle tissue, uh, and many, many other factors for making hormones, et cetera, et cetera. The same goes with fats. They're used for hormone creation, for cell membrane stability. There are a lot of things that the body uses, fats and protein for, other than energy.

Energy is not the primary source of protein for humans. On the other hand. A hundred percent of the carbohydrates that remain after digestion are available for energy. So that, again, if you look at proteins and you say, okay, 30% of the protein is already burned through digestion. They're from the remaining 70%, 30% is used for something other than energy.

Then you end up with a fraction of the calories that you would have to put into that equation. None of those calculators do that. And so that in itself is, is completely misleading. And if you combine then the margin of error from, you know, measuring your calorie burn, measuring your calorie intake, plus the thermogenetic effect of the different I.

Food types that you are consuming, you are complete. You, you, there is no way of measuring anything. You're just, you know, it's, it's random at this point. You just, you know, do whatever you think. So, you know, let's say you aim for a 300 calorie daily deficit, because if you do that over time, you're gonna, you know, lose.

X number of pounds in a week, in a month, et cetera. Now your food tracking has a 20 plus minus 20% margin of error. Your activity tracking has a plus minus 30% margin of error. The therm, uh, thermogenetic effect of food introduces another up to 60, uh, percent margin of error. And so that means you might overeat by a hundred calories or you might significantly undereat if you predominantly consume.

Uh, protein with fat, and so it, it is impossible, you know? And, and the funny thing is that even if you're, if you're only. A hundred calories off. So let's say you, because of your poor math or because of the way it, it, it works out mathematically, you end up over consuming a hundred calories every day.

That's very little. I mean, look at the, how much, how little food you'd have consumed to be just a hundred calories over. That's 36,500 extra calories per year. So theoretically, that would equal. 10.4 pounds of fat gain by only over consuming a hundred calories per day.

The bottom line here really is you cannot reliably track calories. In any shape or form to use that for weight loss or for weight gain, it is mathematically impossible because you don't have the data to make the math work and you don't know the complexities. The intricacies of how your specific body, which might be different from person to person, metabolizes and uses nutrients for energy and for any of the other processes in the human body.

So it does not work. You cannot track calories for burning or for losing weight or for gaining weight. It just does not work if it did, if it was that simple. You know, just to give you some anecdotal evidence, I consume every time I eat. I would argue I over consume. I eat until I'm full, and then I, and done some more.

I don't gain weight. How is that possible? If someone else does the same thing, they might look like, you know, a a, a Michelin guy? I don't. How is that possible? Well, because the human body is not a simple machine. It's not about calories in, calories out. It's significantly more complex than that. And the numbers are not accurate.

And so what is, what can you do then instead, you know, because if, if calorie tracking doesn't work, what can you track? Well, honestly, I, I'm not a huge fan of tracking period, but if you wanna track something, track your protein intake, consume as much protein, one gram per pound of body weight. If you do that, then there is a good chance that you are.

There is very little else you want to consume because you're so full and saturated. Because protein, especially with when combined with some fat, is incredibly satiating. You know, eat protein first. Track your protein intake if you feel like you wanna track something, and then use fat and carbs as sources of fuel.

You know, you always need some fat, but you don't have to get. All of your energy from fat, you can certainly eat some carbohydrates, you know, high quality carbohydrates from seasonal, fresh fruits, et cetera. Nothing wrong with it. Raw honey, maybe. Maybe dairy, raw dairy, if you can handle it, whatever. But stick to protein.

First. Track your protein. If you want to use fat and carbohydrates strategically as your sources of fuel, but you don't necessarily have to track them. If you want to. Just make sure you don't consume too many carbs, you know, stay under 50 grams or whatever a day, 25 grams if you wanna do a low carb ketogenic diet, and you'll be good to go.

You know, if you want to, you can use a continuous glucose monitor to see how your body responds to food, because ultimately. Gaining weight or the inability to lose weight is likely directly linked to your blood sugar and insulin levels. If insulin is high, it's the fat storing hormone, you're not gonna lose weight or it's gonna be very, very difficult.

So if you use a CT M, even though it doesn't directly report your, your insulin levels. You can get an idea of how your blood sugar levels are, because if your blood sugar is chronically elevated, chances are so is your insulin. And if your insulin is high, you're not gonna be able to lose weight. Uh, and fat in particular.

So uses ETM to find out how do you respond to certain types of food. Maybe it'll surprise you that. That banana you are having every afternoon, you know, causes a crazy spike in blood sugar, whereas eating an apple does nothing to you, or eating berries does nothing to you. You know, maybe one that one slice of sourdough bread that you think is so healthy because it's, well, it's sourdough and you made it yourself, causes a crazy spike in blood sugar.

Like in the case of my wife, you know, that's how we found out that she does absolutely not respond well to sourdough as healthy and organically and homemade as it is. She does not respond well to sourdough period, and so you need to find those things out to, you know. To determine what you can, and more importantly, you cannot eat, you know, understand your metabolic flexibility.

You know, your body doesn't, uh, burn a set number of calories each day. It changes, you know, and if you're a menstruating female, it changes throughout the month, you know. And you need to understand all of those things and take them into account. You know, the other thing is, you know, hormonal differences, especially between men and women.

You know, fasting training, exposure to hormetic stressor like cold plunging and sauna bathing, you know, food timing, all of that impacts men and women differently because men are typically on a 24 hour hormonal cycle. Testosterone, spiking in the morning. Going down in the afternoon, women are on a, you know, 28 to 30 day cycle.

Significantly different. You know that one sourdough bread, you know, you might have before your period might respond, or you might respond entirely differently to having the same sour slice of sourdough bread after your period. You know all of the things you need to take into account. But one thing is for certain calorie tracking is flawed, inaccurate, unreliable.

It does absolutely not work in our focus on nutrient quality satiety. Protein intake, metabolic health for sustainable weight loss, and forget tracking calories. It's a freaking waste of time that leads to nothing but frustration. Maybe sometimes you get lucky, um, but you don't wanna use luck as your underlying strategy for weight loss.

With that, we're gonna wrap it up. Let me know, have you. Tried calorie tracking in the past. Has it worked for you? I suspect if it has, then it was probably just luck. Um, but nonetheless, let me know. I'd love to hear, um, if you watch this video, some where their comments allowed. Uh, let me know what you think.

I'd, I'd love to hear from it. Share with someone who needs to hear this. I think many people need to hear this, especially in the female community. I feel like everyone is into, you know, tracking calories because they wanna lose weight. It doesn't work, unfortunately. It doesn't work. I wish it was, it was so simple on paper it doesn't work.

So until next time. Next week on the Primal Shift Podcast, we're cracking open the truth about eggs. Are they really nature's perfect food or could they be wrecking your gut? We raise chickens ourselves, so we've got some hot yolk takes. You don't want to miss. Tune in.