The world of weight loss is a tricky one to navigate. The subject of body image is emotional, and incredibly personal, and has led to a diet industry that values profits over science, and would rather produce clickbait than weight loss programmes that really help people.
And there’s always something new to stray away from the basic scientific message - ‘change the way you eat forever’ or ‘lose pounds without trying’, especially at this time of year.
The latest was Tim Spector, talking to Steven Bartlett on his podcast Diary of a CEO about the ineffectiveness of exercise and calorie counting in weight loss. It’s obviously designed to shock but still…
When I first listened to the podcast, I had no words. But it's important to me and to our mission at Another Round to communicate the science-backed truth.
I have no doubt that Tim Spector is an expert in gut health, and probably in eating healthily in general, but to so overtly dismiss the efficacy of exercise and calorie intake in weight loss is wrong, and potentially harmful.
It minimises and contradicts the lived experience of so many people who have achieved results in this way, and makes Tim come across as someone who’s out to sell books more than he is to actually help people.
It’s true that you can’t out-train a bad diet. But exercise will help you maintain or increase a calorie deficit that will lead to weight loss (if done right), and resistance training is almost essential in creating the physique you want. Without the right exercise, you risk losing more muscle as you diet.
Plus, a body with more muscle also expends more calories in activity or at rest, and expending calories will help if you’re in a deficit.
The benefits of a healthy, active body have been proven over and over. Diet, I admit, is a little trickier, but there is one tried and tested solution: Calorie tracking.
Calorie tracking has frequently been hated on by the diet industry. Yes, it sounds boring, and yes it’s never going to be the bells and whistles, headline-grabbing, easy-solution-to-everyone’s-weight-loss-problems that some other methods claim.
But that’s why it’s right. It’s backed by science, not profit. It’s calories in minus calories out. Simple, but definitely not easy (at the beginning, anyway).
In the podcast, Spector claims that calorie tracking is not even accurate, and it is difficult to achieve 100% accuracy, but it’s still one of the best tools we have for tracking data of what’s going into our bodies.
What didn’t help as well, was Bartlett using the anecdotal evidence of his friend who has been calorie tracking for a long time and not losing weight.
Like everything else, calorie tracking alone won’t lead to you losing fat whilst also being healthier, it needs to be used alongside other methods such as setting rules around your intake of fruit and veg.
N.B. one of the big drawbacks of calorie tracking is that it doesn’t account for food quality; you could hit your macros and calories while eating just meat and pasta, and thus be seriously vitamin deficient.
The best thing about calorie tracking is that it makes you think about what you’re putting into your body.
It helps you see food as fuel - even if you just do it for a few weeks.
By tracking everything in your normal diet, you can educate yourself on things like portion control, and nutrient and calorie density.For instance, some healthy foods are very high in calories, and will make you gain fat if you eat a lot of them.
Calorie counting is a great tool, but it is just that, a tool. It’s there to help you and maybe educate you, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all of a healthy lifestyle.
If you’re a healthy body weight and don’t have a need to change your body composition in any way, then calorie tracking isn't for you.
However, if you’re looking to either lose or gain weight, calorie tracking is usually a good first step.It is best used periodically with a goal in mind, and if it feels like too much, you should take a break from it.
In fact, if you’re planning on doing it for months, you should definitely build in breaks. You don’t want it to take over your life.
[Important] If you’re concerned about the impact of calorie tracking on your mental or physical health, always speak to a health professional
We’ve seen the benefits of calorie tracking and calorie deficit for fat loss through exercise in hundreds of people, including ourselves.
Its effectiveness comes down to one thing: doing it right. So the best thing to do is talk to an expert, or read up about how to do it well and be prepared for a bit of trial and error.
Don’t look for quick fixes, and take anything you hear on a podcast with a big pinch of salt.
Tim Spector is definitely an expert in gut health, so listen to this guy for advice on that by all means, but I’d take the fit pros and nutritionists advice on weight management any day of the week.
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