A recent column about my husband and I trying to lose a little weight over the holidays elicited the following response:
“I read your article about counting calories after your trip to Texas and I totally agree. I started using an Excel spreadsheet in 2016 and recorded every single calorie. I went from 275 pounds to 231 pounds,” said Redd of York, Nebraska.
“When COVID hit four years ago, I decided to get serious about it. When I graduated from Air Force Academy and came back from Vietnam in 1970, I weighed 170 pounds, so I made that my goal for the next year for my birthday. I achieved it one day before my birthday,” he continued.
“I still track all my calories and I stay between 170 and 180 calories, so I’d say your system is great, you just have to stick to it,” he said.
Jerry from Tucson offered a different opinion: “I read your column about calories, and while I think it’s true, I’m not sure it’s all that helpful for people trying to lose weight.”
“Regardless of age, to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you take in. But the problem lies in the realm of metabolism, and there’s no easy way to measure it. It’s complex, and hormones drive the main action our bodies take on food, but to solve the problem we need to study hormones, not count calories. The ‘count calories’ game is a fail. It doesn’t work at all,” he explained.
“Not my personal opinion, but being a registered dietitian is not the secret to success in this field. It’s not your fault, but what you’ve been taught doesn’t work. If it did, we wouldn’t have an obesity epidemic in this country,” he added.
Don’t feel bad, Jerry. It’s true that to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you take in, and your metabolism (how your body burns calories) and hormones play a role. Exercise is also important because it helps speed up your metabolism. What you eat and when you eat also affect how your body burns calories.
According to a review on the topic published in the Journal of Obesity & Metabolic Syndrome in 2021, there are multiple weight loss methods backed by good research. And there’s no one best strategy for weight loss. But these researchers say, “reducing daily caloric intake is the most important factor for weight loss.”
So, no matter what strategy you use, the goal is to burn stored calories (i.e. fat).
When I asked reader Red if I could include his name in this article, he replied, “Of course! I was just amazed to find someone using basically the same system that I use. The main benefit of this system for me has been that it has helped me become more disciplined with my eating.”
We are the same way. My husband has now lost 13 pounds. I am still battling the last 4. Thank you for your comment.
Barbara Quinn-Intermill is a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator at Monterey Peninsula Community Hospital. She is the author of Quinn-Essential Nutrition (Westbow Press, 2015). Email her at [email protected].
