You can never count calories accurately. Here’s why?

We all know, calories in and calories out, together is what helps us get our dream physique. If one is losing weight, calories in must be lower than calories out and vice-versa for anyone gaining weight, but why do most of us fail to reach our goal, if the mantra is that simple. Where are we going wrong?

Well, the answer is we are counting calories wrong and I am not here to tell you, it’s your fault, because it’s not. Practically, no one can track calories accurately.

Have you seen labels on food packaging that says 1 cup serving size or 1 tablespoon or teaspoon serving size? They provide the nutrition table according to that serving size. Now, the cup, the tablespoon and the teaspoon weight is considered different in different countries. So, the nutrition label on the packet becomes insignificant with these differences in these relative measurements methods across the world (However, if the serving size is mentioned in grams, the accuracy improves significantly.)

It’s difficult to track calories of items like bread, cheese slices and similar items. Every slice of bread and cheese are different in size and width. Even if you know, the total calories of the pack and can weigh out every slice to find the right calories per slice but it just too impractical and time consuming for me. Many people simply use apps like myfitnesspal or similar apps to track calories and macros which makes approximate estimations to track daily calorie intake and thus, compromises some accuracy along with it.

Lastly, even if you track everything right. You do all the calculation manually, you can still be incorrect, considering the fact that labels lie. This is somewhat of a marketing gimmick used by companies. There are a lot of companies, that shows less calories per serving than in real. If lower calories per serving is mentioned, the sales will go up because people will be more willing to buy it.

Now, this article is not to discourage you to track calories. It’s just that you need to know, we are just tracking it with significant approximations, so the total calorie intake that you track is always somewhat incorrect. So, along with tracking calories, it’s important to track your weight daily and measure the weekly progress. Along with daily weight check in, use the mirror to track your progress.