The weight loss and diet industry is extremely confusing and many subjects are a bit of a grey area when knowing what exactly to do.
One of the areas that tends to be debated is, do calories count when trying to lose weight?
Some people will say, ‘a calorie is not a calorie’ and explain that a calorie of sugar isn’t the same as a calorie of protein. There is a very simple and CORRECT answer that I can give. And then I will expand on why there seems to be too much confusion here.
If you consume less calories than your body burns in a day (calorie deficit) you WILL lose weight. If you consume more calories than your body burns in a day you WILL gain weight. The same thing happens over a longer period of time. So if over the whole week you consume less calories than you burn you WILL lose weight.
So the simple answer is YES CALORIES DEFINITELY DO MATTER. This is a fact and just can't be denied.
Now before you go out and consume just chocolate and sweets and think that's ok as long as you keep within a calorie deficit you need to take into account a few extra things.
I am now going to try to encourage a healthy and sensible approach to creating your calorie deficit.
You want to lose weight for 2 reasons.
1 - you want to be healthier. If this is the reason then it makes a lot of sense not to eat processed foods and to choose more nutrient dense foods. Ultimately ignoring your health and putting it to the back of the queue will likely end up with disease, sickness, operations and an early death.
2 - You want to look better. This is probably the biggest motivator for people to embark on their weight loss journey. If you just eat cakes, biscuits, bread, juice but still get a calorie deficit you may still lose weight but you will look awful once all the weights gone. Plus you'll start to look ill. A healthy natural diet will make you look a lot healthier and happier.
PLUS whole and natural foods such as vegetables are extremely bulky for how many calories they contain so you can pretty much fill up on them and eat almost as many as you like.
So in summary:
Calories DO MATTER.
But...
People don't get in great shape by eating junk. Follow the lead of people who have got great transformations and eat healthy like they all did.