If you are trying to lose weight, counting your calories is paramount. For a long time, I was doing a body recomposition strategy, which helped me lose weight to a point. But once I hit a plateau, I had to transition to doing a calorie deficit diet, which involves counting every single calorie that I consume and having my daily calorie total be well under my maintenance calorie level.
One way that many people try to count their calories is via a calorie counting app. There are many of them out on the market these days, and all of them are aimed at helping people track their calories easier. While most, if not all, of them are well-meaning, I am sure, I am not entirely sold on the idea and choose to track my calories the old-fashioned way with a pencil and paper journal after measuring/weighing all of my food before I eat it.
When I first started my calorie deficit diet over six weeks ago, I was blown away by how many different answers pop up in Google search results for ‘how many calories’ are in different foods. I have yet to search for the estimated calorie count for a food and have all of the top search results yield the same answer. For some foods, the serving size and the related estimated calorie content can vary widely in the search results.
“People should not rely on this as the Bible of food intake and expenditure,” says Susanne Votruba, a research dietitian at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, about calorie counting apps according to Popular Science.
“If people want to track and use these apps, I think that’s fine and can be helpful,” Votruba also stated. “But if it starts to rule your life, then it’s not something that’s worthwhile because it’s giving you a number that may or may not be accurate.”
The Popular Science article also pointed out that not all humans metabolize foods the same way depending on their gut health, pointing to a 2019 study conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture that focused on cashews. The study found that while study participants all ate the same amount of cashews, some participants absorbed more of the calories than others by a difference of as much as 12%.
“The difference between 137 and 157 calories in a serving of cashews might not sound like a lot, but it’s enough to make a difference in the accuracy of a diet tracker.” Kathleen Melanson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Rhode Island, pointed out in the article.
Considering that 12% difference, and that it only applied to one 42 gram serving of cashews, now consider applying that discrepancy to a whole day’s worth of food consisting of many meals and snacks. Also consider that when you punch in a specific food, it may also be off because of the size of the serving of the food, where the app is sourcing its assigned calorie number for the food, whether that source is a high or low or average number, etc. It becomes a compounding of discrepancies.
I am not saying that calorie counting apps serve no purpose, or are always wrong, or that they are never beneficial. The point that I am trying to highlight in this article is to take the convenience of a counting app and what it tells you with a grain of salt. Context matters. If you are just trying to get a general idea of how many calories you are eating, and the act of punching in what you eat into an app helps you be more mindful of what you eat, then the apps are probably fine.
But if you are aiming to be on a calorie deficit diet and want to know, down to the single calorie, how many calories you have consumed in a day, you will likely be better off looking at the packaging of each specific item, measuring/weighing out your serving sizes, and putting in the extra effort to be as precise as possible.
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