2617: Why You Should Count Calories for 30 Days Once In Your Life by Daniel Freedman with Bach Performance

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[00:01:44] Daily episode 2617, Why You Should Count Calories for 30 Days Once in Your Life by Daniel Friedman of bockperformance.com and I'm Dr. Neil, your very own personal narrator. Hey there, happy Tuesday

[00:01:58] and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily. This is where I read to you from some of the best health and fitness blogs on the web and always with a little bit of my commentary at the end. I'm going

[00:02:08] to keep this intro nice and short because I have another personal story I'll share with you about today's post. So let's get right to it as we optimize your life. Why You Should Count Calories

[00:02:22] for 30 Days Once in Your Life by Daniel Friedman of bockperformance.com. What comes to mind when you think of counting calories? I'd bet the first words that spring to mind are annoying, nerdy,

[00:02:38] and anal retentive. Maybe even obsessive or pain in the you know what. I agree but here's the thing, you should count calories anyway but only once and only for 30 days for the most convincing of

[00:02:53] reasons. It's the best way to retake control of your eating and ultimately help you lose fat and build muscle. We're living in an era of trendy diets, some work, some don't. They all have plenty of slick marketing and influencer endorsements. There's also a plethora of prominent biohackers

[00:03:13] pushing the supposed benefits of such diets which are said to range from faster fat loss to preventing cancer. And why not throw in the ultimate feel-good bonus for virtue signaling, social justice warriors, saving the world by improving the environment? Great, wonderful,

[00:03:30] fantastic. If they work for you I'm beyond excited for you. Keto, intermittent fasting, vegan diets, carnivore, paleo, they can all work and I've had clients that have experienced success with all of them. Still there is one classic dietary strategy that everyone should do once in their lives,

[00:03:50] counting calories once for 30 days. Let me begin with a caveat, counting calories is not a magic cure-all strategy. There are drawbacks and skeptics. The skeptics say not all labels are accurate. I say, try to focus instead on the proper and prescribed serving size of cereal or peanut

[00:04:11] butter or whatever. To do otherwise could easily double the portion size and add 300 or more calories. It takes too much time. I say, the average person now spends hours mindlessly scrolling on

[00:04:26] social media. Why not carve out 5-10 minutes to write down what you eat? The only reason is, I don't want to. Counting calories triggers an unhealthy relationship with food. You stop seeing the joy and togetherness food can bring and only see protein, carbs, and fats to obsess over.

[00:04:44] I say, understood. If you battle disordered eating, please speak to your healthcare provider. I'm not your guy. But there is one ultra important lesson counting calories will teach you. Awareness. What gets measured, gets managed. These are the words of Peter Drucker,

[00:05:03] the inventor of modern management theory. The takeaway for fitness professionals or other business people is that if you don't know how much a lead costs and the amount of money a lead brings into your business, you can't scale intelligently. In personal finance,

[00:05:19] gurus talk about the importance of setting a budget and understanding where your money is coming from and where it's going. If you don't know these things, you can't plan intelligently. In short, you need to build awareness so you can make better, more informed choices. It's also

[00:05:35] blindingly obvious you have to wonder why the wisdom of making data-driven decisions is lost on us when it comes to dieting and nutrition. Which leads to some questions. How can you adjust your fat loss diet if you're unsure how much you're eating? How can you adjust your muscle

[00:05:51] building plan if you don't know how many calories you're eating each day? How can you make sure the money you're spending on supplements is actually addressing a nutritional deficiency if you don't

[00:06:02] see where the gaps are in your nutrition in the first place? In training, how do you know if a workout is working if you're not tracking your weights to ensure progressive overload? In all these instances, having tangible information makes your decisions infinitely more informed and more

[00:06:17] effective. Here's what I propose. Take the next 30 days to track what you eat in an app, such as MyFitnessPal. The awareness you gain in 30 days will be exponentially greater than you'd gain consuming a random assortment of Instagram posts, YouTube videos, and diet blog posts. You'll gain

[00:06:35] awareness of where you could improve based on your current eating. You'll make dramatically better and more informed choices going forward. And here's the payoff. You don't need to continue tracking after this point. Truth be told, these days I only track calories when I'm really dialing in my

[00:06:52] physique for a photo shoot or ramping up calories at the start of a bulk so I can gauge what I need to eat each day. Five macro tracking secrets for shredded high performers. One, meal prep on Sundays.

[00:07:07] Grill, bake, or broil two to four pounds of lean protein. Roast some veggies. Cook a bag of potatoes and steam some rice. This gives you the component pieces to make dozens of different meals with ease.

[00:07:21] Two, eat mostly the same foods. You can store these favorite foods in MyFitnessPal or other apps which will allow you to implement them easily. For the record, I routinely eat tacos and pizza.

[00:07:33] They're easy to make healthy with a little planning though. Eating foods you love makes this process much more enjoyable. Three, use measuring cups, measuring spoons, etc. Learning portion sizes is the most important lesson here particularly in America where everything is supersized.

[00:07:53] Four, do it now. Track calories right around mealtime. If you wait until the evening, you'll forget. Five, as a bonus, write how you feel when you're eating. Are you stressed, anxious, relaxed? If you notice you're devouring Doritos when you're stressed, you found something you need to address.

[00:08:13] Stress management. Let's go. You can have results or have excuses. You decide. Track once for 30 days. If you never want to do it again, cool. Don't. If you like it, great. Keep doing it. You'll probably

[00:08:30] end up getting in better shape than 99% of people. Either way, please heed this message. When it comes to transforming your body and changing your habits, you can only optimize the actions you're aware of. This is where calorie counting comes in. It gives you the ultimate

[00:08:47] insight into calorie balance, macronutrient splits, and any gaps in your nutrition. Ditch the fad diets, at least temporarily. To the extent they work, well, they work because they restrict food choices. This puts you in a caloric deficit. Instead, track what you're eating for 30 days. You'll be

[00:09:06] able to make more informed choices whether you're trying to build muscle, lose fat, or heck, even when buying supplements. Once the 30 days are up, do whatever you'd like. The 10 minutes it takes you

[00:09:17] each day to track will give you the awareness and discipline to improve your eating for the rest of your life. And that, my friend, is priceless. You just listened to the post titled, Why You Should Count Calories for 30 Days Once in Your Life by Daniel Friedman of

[00:09:37] bachperformance.com and I'll be right back with my commentary. Dr. Neil here for my commentary. For years, I have taught an undergraduate Introduction to Health class. Since nutrition and health are so closely intertwined, I often spend about 5 weeks of the semester talking about

[00:09:55] just nutrition. And when I get to the point where I teach students about how to read a nutrition facts label, I talk about how the percentages you find on this label are based on the idea that

[00:10:06] you're eating 2,000 calories per day. That's what they're assuming. I then ask my students, how many of you eat exactly 2,000 calories each and every day? Without fail, one or two smart alachy students raise their hands. It happens every single time I teach this class. So I then say,

[00:10:24] all right, let's put it to the test. You're going to record everything you eat and drink for three days. And we're going to then calculate how many calories you actually ate. And again, without

[00:10:36] fail, students are always amazed about what they thought they ate and the reality of what they actually ate. Look, no one consumes exactly 2,000 calories every single day. And keeping a food journal is an eye-opening experience because it sheds light on why this is. When I was a student,

[00:10:54] I had to constantly keep food journals. And at the time, we didn't have all of the cool food tracking apps we have now. I had to write everything down by hand. But I learned something

[00:11:05] new about myself every time. Whenever a patient or client of mine wanted to lose weight or break through a weight loss plateau, I always had them keep a food journal. And like magic, they would

[00:11:17] soon learn where their trouble spots were. Food journals put a magnifying glass on eating habits. It forces you to become more aware of those habits. And when we look at the research, researchers have

[00:11:29] found that keeping food journals is the best way to stay on track with regards to your nutrition or fitness goals. And so just as Daniel said, knowing this information, having this awareness is what's key. It's very valuable information. All right, that'll do it for today. Thank you

[00:11:47] so much for listening. Thank you for being here every day. Thank you for sharing this show with someone. I hope you have a great rest of your day and I'll be back here tomorrow as usual where your optimal life awaits.