To be precise…

We explained last week how you can’t out run a bad diet, and your success on the scales will ultimately come when you get that calorie deficit. But how can you make sure you give yourself the best chance of achieving that calorie deficit?

Well, I think we all know that the answer to that question is to track our calories, as we consume them. And, most importantly, track them accurately.  What do I mean? Well we need to remove the guess work from our tracking and get precise and accurate with the figures.

A Good Guess?

If we are the sort of person that has always had a problem with overeating in the past, to the point where we are gaining weight, it might be a safe assumption to make that we aren’t very good at guessing what might be the right portion size and therefore the right calories for us.  Some people are really lucky and just seem to be able to reduce their portion sizes, eat ‘healthy’ foods and succeed at this game – but then there are a lot of people that can’t.

If you are one of those people, then there is only one thing to do – that is to stop guessing and get precise. It might seem boring but if you want success, you are going to have to do it, at least for a short time, until your eyes get used to what your new portions look like or until you develop a quick way of measuring things out.

Where it could all go wrong!

We have done a little research into where we might make mistakes into the difference in calories, when we miscalculate our portion sizes.

We are all guilty of this, I know I am at times, but if we are on track for a specific goal, we have to get honest and most importantly accurate with our calorie tracking.  Below you can see a few examples of how much portion size can vary and the impact that can have on our calorie intake.

It’s easy to make those little slips, when we are free pouring pasta into the pan, the cereal into the bowl, or when we suddenly have one less at a mealtime (because we can’t waste it!).  But all those little slips will add up… so we need to find a way of controlling them.

The best way to control your portion sizes is obviously to weigh things. Which might seem like a chore at first, but you will soon get used to what your new portion sizes looks like, or find an easier way to measure. Maybe using a small tea cup to measure cereal, or just a sprinkle on the bottom of the bowl.

Using pre-packed portions of things like dried fruit and nuts or other snacks is a great way to stop the endless dipping into the bigger share bag. We have even had members using pre-packaged small pots of jam, to make sure they know what they are eating.

Under-reporting and over estimating

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) carried out a study in 2018, to look into how people report the amount of calories that they consume, and whether it accurately reflects actual calorie consumption.

The reason for this study was to understand why generally reports of calorie consumption were reducing, but the population’s weight, and incidences of overweight and obesity, was increasing. So there had to be a reason why. And it couldn’t just be that we were less active as a nation, because the drop in energy expenditure, did not equate to the rate of weight gain in the general population.

This study found that on average British people under estimate the amount of calories consumed, and actually take in 50% more than they think they do. In the ONS study 4000 people reported calorie consumption as part of a diet survey and it revealed some interesting findings.

• Men reported consuming 2065 calories a day on average, but actual consumption was 3119 – They ate 51% more calories than they reported consuming.
• Women reported consuming 1570 calories a day on average, but actual consumption was 2393 – They ate 52% more calories than they reported consuming.
• Obese and overweight people under estimated their calorie consumption by a greater proportion than those who were a healthy weight, although there was still under-reporting in this sector. Which kind of agrees with our assertion that if we are big, we perhaps aren’t that good at guessing our calories.

We also often over-estimate how many calories our exercise buys us.

We regularly hear people saying they have been for a 5k or 10k run, or they have been to the gym for an hour, so they reward themselves with a big meal followed by a massive pudding, probably putting three times as many calories in as they have burnt off.

Below, we have put together a list of exercises and their equivalent in calories for a 13 stone person. The heavier we are the more calories we burn, and the lighter we are, the less calories we burn.

So as you can see, we must be mindful that we don’t overestimate our exercise because that run you just did or the workout session in the gym, really doesn’t equal the Indian takeaway complete with starters and sundries, and a bottle or two of Cobra.  And that swim you just did really doesn’t equal the chocolate muffin and latte that you had afterwards.

That is why we encourage you to keep exercise separate to weight loss, and treat exercise as a method to get you fit, and concentrate solely on your nutrition to lose weight.

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Meal tracker

Quite often when people join Be Strong they are disappointed that meal tracker isn’t already populated with a list of foods. But there is a reason for this. When we use pre-populated meal trackers like My Fitness Pal they are populated with lots of other peoples data on food and calories. Data which is quite possibly inaccurate for your particular choice of food. Quite often if you go to select a chicken breast, for example, you can get a range of options for calories – anywhere from perhaps around 80 calories to 300 calories. We are bound to pick the one with the lowest calorie number because we obviously want to eat as much food as possible. So with the Be Strong Meal tracker, we ask you to actually work out how much chicken you are eating then calculate what that will be in calories, based on proper data. A quick google search give us the answer per 100g so we just have to do some quick maths.

When we are talking about being accurate with our calories, doing some accurate calculations and recording is vitally important, if we want to make best use of our effort, anything else is really just a waste of our time and effort, because it will ultimately mean that we don’t achieve our goals. 

Oops I forgot!

Then there’s the things that we forgot we ate! That biscuit as we passed the treat desk at work, the piece of ham we picked at in the fridge, the chips we pinched off the kids tea when we were dishing up.

The things we eat absent-mindedly and without thought or control can really get in the way of our success. A few months ago, we added up all the potential calories from a standard day of picking and nibbling at things without thought, and we calculated we could be having an extra 700 calories a day without realising. It is so easy to do – so it is vital that if you are tracking calories, you record absolutely everything that passes your lips, because it all adds up.

What can we do to get more precise?

• We should check the packaging of foods where the calories are noted rather than guessing how many calories are in something.
• We should write down our food choices and calories as soon as we eat them (or before) to avoid ‘forgetting’ what we have eaten.
• We need to be honest with ourselves and write everything down, not just what looks good in our food diaries. Stop kidding ourselves.
• We should stop rewarding exercise with food and treat weight loss and exercise separately.

With a few careful tweaks, we could start to see even more success than we are already having.

This Week!

This week, have a go at some of these things, but most importantly bear in mind how accurately you record your own calorie consumption, be honest, and the changes will undoubtedly start to happen!  If we keep guessing we are essentially playing roulette with our chances of success. Be accurate and guarantee that success!