in this video we are going to be talking about counting calories for weight loss
is it an effective strategy or is it setting you up for disaster this video
is for anyone who has ever tracked and reduced their calories and not gotten
the results they hope for or maybe it worked for a bit maybe you lost weight
at the beginning and then your weight loss plateaued we're going to break down
why exactly this happens in the video today in the past I've tried several
variations of counting calories in an attempt to lose weight and each and
every one of these attempts failed now that I understand the science behind how
we take in and how we put out energy it makes perfect sense why this didn't work
in this video we are going to talk about why counting and restricting calories is
not an effective strategy for weight loss and what you can do instead hey
guys welcome back to my channel if you need here at my name is Kait I'm a
health coach and I post videos on a high fat nutrient-dense way of eating if you
like this video please give it a thumbs up feel free to share and make sure
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your new posts every single day well it is literally true that you need to be
burning more energy than you are consuming in order to lose weight what
isn't true is that a calorie equals a calorie one example of this is when you
eat 500 calories of pure protein compared to 500 calories of pure
carbohydrates because it takes different amounts of energy to break each of these
nutrients down by the time you digest the protein you will be left with only
325 net calories compared to 475 calories with the carbs it takes more
energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbohydrates and this is just
one example of why counting calories is not going to be effective it is
impossible to track calories in and calories out accurately
and in fact the energy that we expend adjusts based on how much we consume
calories in and calories that are not independent variables they increase and
decrease together but I'm getting ahead of myself
we will get into exactly how and why this happens a little bit later in the
video so we're gonna start this video off by talking about all the factors
that impact the calories in a portion of this equation and then we're going to
talk about all the factors that impact the calories out portion at which point
it's going to start to become pretty clear why counting calories is not
effective and then we'll finish off the video by talking about what we can do
instead calories in there are several reasons why we cannot accurately track
how much energy we are consuming for starters nutrition labels are allowed to
be off by up to 25 percent this is 25 percent over or under what is written on
the label so when you eat a chocolate bar that reads 200 calories in reality
it could contain anywhere from 160 to 240 calories this is a huge window if
you're trying to keep your numbers exact and on that note as I mentioned earlier
as well different macronutrients take different amounts of energy in order to
digest this is called the thermic effect of food protein digestion burns between
20 to 35 percent of the total calories carbs 5 to 15 percent in fat 0 to 3
percent so as you can see once again 500 calories of protein is going to net less
than 500 calories of fat well and this leads me to the second half of the
equation calories out now there are four main ways we can categorize energy
expenditure energy burned at rest also known as your resting metabolic rate
energy burned through exercise energy burned through non-exercise activity and
energy burned through metabolizing food which is the thermic effective
mentioned earlier so let's start with energy burned at rest this is going to
be the one that we focus on the most today because this makes up almost 75
percent of our total daily expenditure this is the amount of energy your body
burns basically when you're sleeping to keep your heart beating to keep you
breathing the energy you need for all your basic functions when you use those
calorie calculators where you enter in your height and your weight what it is
calculating is what it estimates to be you're rmr plus your energy burnt
through exercise but the problem is that this number can vary greatly and as I
said before it's also impacted by how much you are consuming when we severely
restrict our calories for long periods of time our body adjusts to the lower
calorie intake and cuts corners on some of our bodily functions and this is why
long term dieters will often feel cold all the time
or experience hair loss their body realizes that they are getting less
energy in so they cut back how much they are putting out so of course the
priority is to keep your heart beating to keep you breathing but some of the
side effects might be they become more tired if you're a woman you might lose
your period and as I said before you might find you are cold all the time or
losing hair your body is not receiving enough energy to keep all these things
up it's focusing on keeping you alive so what does this mean for weight loss
if you cut your calories significantly initially you're probably going to lose
weight but what ends up happening after a month or so is your body adjusts and
your weight loss plateaus at which point you cut your calories further maybe
continue to lose weight but then you plateau again and this is such a vicious
cycle that is probably very familiar to anyone who's drastically reduced
calories before and when you do start eating more calories again the weight
comes back quick because your body doesn't just adjust right away to
burning more calories and this is what people are talking
about when they say the dieting slows down your metabolism unfortunately it's
true so what about exercising more theoretically if you do burn more
calories your exercise you will lose weight but this isn't effective for
several reasons number one is that your rmr makes up almost 75 percent of your
total daily expenditure this could mean up to 1,500 to 2,000 calories if you do
a 60-minute intense workout class you're probably burning a couple hundred
calories at most and maybe you're wearing a fitness tracker and it's
saying that you're burning a lot more please do not trust it these activity
trackers are not accurate a meta-analysis that looked at sixty
studies showed that fitness trackers are not very accurate and measuring energy
expenditure especially for less vigorous activities like walking or housework
outside of a lab you really cannot be sure how much energy you're actually
burning so unless you were doing multiple hours of intense exercise every
single day your total energy expenditure from exercise is only going to be a
small fraction of your total expenditure for the day number two is that
exercising makes you hungry I used to be so guilty of finishing an intense
workout class or as an example I used to do hot yoga and I would walk out of that
studio drenched in sweat and go straight to the bakery next door grab a muffin
grab a sugary drink and totally offset any extra calories that were just burned
exercise is so beneficial for our health but the benefits do not come from
burning more calories and number three is that if you are calorie restricting
one of the side effects is going to be low energy and this means it's going to
be really tough to actually get a good workout in the other factor that impacts
calories out is our for months when you eat food your
hormones play a role in deciding how that food is used is it going to be
burnt as energy right away or stored as fat in someone whose insulin resistant
meaning their cells are not as sensitive to insulin anymore a greater percentage
of the calories they are consuming are going to be stored as fat and guess what
one in three Americans is insulin resistant and let me explain insulin a
little bit more so you can see how it ties in every time we eat insulin is
released again in different amounts depending on the food we eat
carbohydrates have the biggest impact on insulin they are broken down into sugars
when we consume them which leads to an increase in blood sugar and it's this
rise in blood sugar that leads the release of the blood sugar lowering
hormone which is insulin in a healthy individual who is not insulin resistant
insulin takes the glucose to fuel your nervous system and burn it off as energy
but if you are insulin resistant your muscles don't readily grab the glucose
and it goes into your fat stores instead alright so I have spent a good amount of
time explaining to you why counting and restricting calories is not an effective
strategy for weight loss so what's the solution the key lies with insulin as I
just mentioned one in three Americans is insulin resistant and this causes more
storage of fat we become insulin resistant when insulin levels are always
high and then our cells do not respond to it in the same way now there are two
components to why someone would become insulin resistant number one eating high
insulin response foods and number two eating constantly throughout the day
insulin levels are lowest when we have not eaten for several hours but the
problem is we live in a world where we are always eating the average American
today eats five to six times per day and you can compare this
to the 1970s when the average American ate only three times per day when we are
constantly eating our insulin is always high this is made worse with the foods
we are eating have a big insulin response carbs have the biggest insulin
response and they make up over half of the total calories
the average Westerner eats every day if we want to lose weight we need to
improve insulin sensitivity and keep our arm our high and fortunately there is
one tool that is extremely effective for both of these things fasting as I
mentioned before when we have not eaten for several hours okay we are in a
fasted State this is when insulin is going to be lowest
intermittent fasting has been shown to reduce fasting insulin levels from 21 to
up to 30% and also really interesting is that whereas when restricting calories
for long periods of time has the effect of lowering rmr fasting actually speeds
it up one study done on eleven healthy men found that a three day fast actually
increased their metabolism by an impressive 14% you do not have to start
this extreme and do a three day fast in order to reap these benefits simply
start by trying to eat all of your calories within a 12-hour window if you
do this than the other 12 hours of the day are spent fasted and yes the time
you are asleep also counts towards this you can reduce your window even further
to increase your results 16-8 is a popular version of intermittent fasting
where you eat within an eight-hour window and fast for 16 hours I have a
whole other video on intermittent fasting and getting started so if you
want to know more you can check that out afterwards the second part to this is
that you want to be eating foods that have a low insulin response
carbohydrates have the biggest impact on our insulin so eating a low-carb
high-fat diet such as keto is going to be the most effective make sure to be
eating mainly Whole Foods and eat when you're hungry stop when you're full
because most of your calories are coming from fat and protein both of which are
extremely satiating it's going to be tough for you to actually overeat and
this is combined with the fact you are going to be condensing you're eating
window now if you were previously eating a calorie restricted diet unfortunately
your rmr has probably decreased so initially you might gain weight but as
you eat more your RMR will increase and then your weight will stabilize and go
down as you improve your insulin sensitivity it can be tempting to freak
out and restrict your calories again but you need to look at the big picture
yes calorie counting can be effective short term but it will not lead to
sustainable weight loss anyways guys that is all I have for you today if you
are interested in starting a keto diet and intermittent fasting then my new
program Tito start is for you this is a seven-day keto crash course that gives
you everything you need to start a keto diet and see results the course includes
a downloadable keto shopping list Akito meal building guide a carb cheat
sheet and a sample meal plan you also get access to a private Facebook group
or I can answer your questions and offer support head to keto start with Kate
com2 get a free preview of the course and to sign up now thanks again for
watching guys give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it you can also check
out that video on intamin fasting I talked about by clicking here if you
want to catch up on my most recent upload you can click here and if you
want to check out my and carnivore diet pushing programs you
can click here thanks again guys I'll see you next time
bye