Calorie counting apps and long-term weight loss

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The calorie counting apps are extremely popular these days. Many weight loss programs include calorie-counting apps and people like using them. This popularity is a bit surprising because numerous studies show that the long-term benefit of calorie restriction for weight loss is minimal. Let’s take a look at what makes calorie-counting apps so popular and the pitfalls of relying uniquely on this tool to help with weight loss.

Weight loss and long-term maintenance are complex processes involving many factors. The food, physiology, physical activity, habits, beliefs, social environment, and mindset all play a role in weight loss. Calorie-counting apps can be helpful as a part of a more comprehensive weight loss program. They are a great tool to increase awareness and accountability, to learn about the macronutrient composition of foods and ingredients, and to increase engagement, especially for data-driven people. They also have some inherent characteristics that can be counterproductive to long-term success.

Benefits of calorie-counting Apps

Awareness and accountability

By logging your food, you start paying more attention to what you eat. Being aware is the first step to better food choices. You might also notice some patterns in your behavior. For example, when you eat in front of the TV, you eat more. Or, I eat well the first part of the week, and my eating gets progressively worse toward the weekend.

Tracking your food intake keeps you accountable. For many people, seeing their day-to-day progress helps them stay motivated. 

Macronutrient breakdown of meals

Many people are data-driven and do well when given specific targets. If you target a particular macronutrient composition of your meals, an app will make it easier. Let’s say you are going on a low-carb diet. An app can help you initially assess what your typical meals look like. It will let you know whether you have too many grams of carbohydrates in a meal and which ingredients are carb-heavy. For example, one of my clients thought she was eating a low-sugar diet. After logging her meals for a week, to her surprise, she learned that she ate high amounts of sugar. She then found out that dried fruits were driving her sugar intake up and could adjust down. And consequently, the app gave her peace of mind that she was on the right track.

Increased engagement 

You can invite others to connect with you through the app and start a competition. If you are not competitive, you can encourage and support each other.

Many of my clients use the food journal app that comes with my professional platform. So we can review and analyze their entries and apply different strategies to move forward with their goals. We use curiosity and creativity to increase engagement with their weight loss journey.

Calorie-counting apps – disadvantages

Restricting calories and long-term weight loss

Some people use the apps to mainly focus on reducing calories. And research points out that restricting calorie intake doesn’t result in long-term weight loss. We have been using this approach for 60+ years, but the rates of obesity kept going up over those years. We all agree that excessive caloric intake and physical inactivity are associated with weight gain. However, it doesn’t mean that they cause weight gain and that reducing calories is the best solution. Long-term caloric reduction can lead to problems like reduced metabolic rate, yo-yo dieting mindset, restricting and binging tendencies, etc.

The carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis is an alternative approach to weight loss based on human physiology and is much more effective.

Internal regulation of energy balance

If you primarily focus on counting calories, you ignore the essential internal mechanisms that balance energy intake and expenditure. Calories from different macronutrients affect these internal processes in dramatically different ways. A tablespoon of olive oil will give you 135 calories, the same amount as two slices of bread. The effect of these two foods on your metabolism and hormones will be significantly different. And that difference can be a much more relevant factor to weight management than the number of calories consumed.

Caloric targets

The apps typically prompt you to set your caloric target. Standard formulas calculate the caloric target that can be pretty far from your actual needs. The algorithm uses your current weight, height, age, gender, and level of physical activity to establish caloric needs for weight maintenance. Then, the assumption is that to lose a pound of weight, you need to restrict your food intake by 3500 Cal. So, if each day you eat 500 calories less than your daily maintenance, in one week, you weigh one pound lighter. Our bodies just don’t work in such a predictable, mechanistic way! We all experienced days when we lost a pound without trying or, most commonly, we restricted calories for a week with no weight loss at all.

Labeling inaccuracies

The feature of the apps that my clients enjoy is how quickly and easily they can log their food. Now, they can just scan a label, and all the ingredients are accounted for. The problem is that manufacturers are allowed 20% margins for labeling inaccuracies. That adds up to -/+300 calories for someone targeting 1500 calories a day. And that’s huge!

If you buy into the calorie-in/calorie-out concept, it would take only 21 calories of daily overeating to gain 50 pounds over 25 years. And 21 calories is about a teaspoon of sugar. No app could ever track your food intake to that precision.

Quantity vs. quality

Fat is the most calorie-dense macronutrient. And it only makes sense from a calorie-restriction standpoint that you should avoid fat to reduce caloric intake. The caloric density of foods has been considered harmful for us. And that’s just not true. There are plenty of good foods that are calorie-dense, like olives, and plenty of low-calorie foods that have minimal health benefits for us, like popcorn.

Also, some people “economize” their calories on healthy foods to have a cookie at the end of the day. This strategy robs them of essential macro- and micronutrients, slows down weight loss progress, and creates unhealthy relationships with food.

Self-regulation vs. food tracking

In a way, relying on food-tracking apps is a subtle message to yourself that you are incapable of being responsible for your weight and need an external mechanism to self-regulate. Instead of trusting your hunger and satiety signals and an honest assessment of our habits, we give control to a rigid algorithm. An app is a gross simplification of what happens inside the body and the complex internal process of body weight regulation. 

The human body has internal signaling to regulate hunger and satiety from birth. Think of a newborn baby who doesn’t know anything about the world. However, she’ll cry when hungry and spit out the breast or bottle when full. It’s impossible to force the baby to eat past satisfaction. Then, we grow up and learn to ignore the internal cues of hunger and satisfaction, replacing them with behaviors and beliefs that don’t serve us. Reconnecting with our internal cues and paying attention to hunger and satisfaction is a more reliable way to regulate weight.

When you stop counting calories

More than 80% of dieters gain weight back within the first year. Most people stop tracking their food when they finish their diet. And because they are not used to relying on their internal signals to regulate weight, they have nothing to fall back on. Many people, when they stop tracking, stop paying attention. They don’t know how to transition to eating to satisfy their needs and maintain weight without using apps.

In summary

The food-tracking apps are a helpful tool when used in the short term and with specific learning objectives. They help you learn about the macronutrient composition of different ingredients, make smart food choices, and keep yourself accountable and focused on the weight loss process.

Unfortunately, many people use food-tracking apps to restrict calories and reduce food intake. They learn to rely on an algorithm rather than their body to tell them how much to eat and to ignore their internal cues to regulate food intake. Calorie counting is rarely a successful strategy for weight loss, and most dieters gain weight back within the first year. Weight maintenance is just as essential as the initial weight loss. That’s why working with a professional or engaging in a comprehensive weight loss program can be so helpful. Make sure to learn from your nutritionist how they can help you change your eating habits so you can lose weight and keep it off.

References:

  1. Benton D. and Young H.A., Reducing caloric intake may not help lose body weight. Perspective on psychological science 2017; 12(5): 703-714.
  2. Kraschnewski, J. L., Boan, J., Esposito, J., Sherwood, N. E., Lehman, E. B., Kephart, D. K., & Sciamanna, C. N. (2010). Long-term weight loss maintenance in the United States. International journal of obesity (2005)34(11), 1644-54. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2010.94
  3. Rena R Wing, Suzanne Phelan; Long-term weight loss maintenance, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 July 2005, Pages 222S–225S, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/82.1.222S
  4. Taubes, G. (2007) Good calories, bad calories. Anchor Books, NY