I’ve heard it (I’ve even been there myself): “I’m logging everything I am eating and drinking and coming in at or even below my calorie limit and NOTHING is changing! What am I doing wrong?”
There is no right answer to that question. Part of the truth is that you could be doing absolutely nothing wrong or you could be doing a lot wrong! Before I go into some reasons for inaccuracy, I will say that no method is going to give you 100% accuracy. There is no way to know exactly how many calories you’re eating even if you did log everything to every precise gram and calorie.
SO, let’s explore the following question:
Is tracking your calories in an app accurate? Here are some reasons it might be inaccurate.
- You could be logging incorrect measurements. You might measure or weigh every single thing you put into your body with the most precise accuracy. But I doubt it. We eyeball it, we get lazy, a little extra won’t hurt, we don’t track that nibble. I don’t think anyone out there is logging everything to 100% precision!
- Your body doesn’t use every calorie it takes in. Your body is not a device used to measure calories, and it’s possible you could eat the exact same meal every day for a week and absorb a different amount of calories every time. It depends on what your body needs that particular day, your activity, your stress, your sleep and lots of other things.
- Your app may not be accurate. Ever type “chicken” into myfitnesspal? I am pretty sure hundreds of entries come up. Even if you are more specific, I promise you will get more than a hundred results with varying calorie amounts. Which one do you choose?
- Your energy status could be playing a role. We know that if you’re in a calorie deficit, your body will attempt to slow digestion to absorb more calories from foods than it might at another time (see point no. 2). The variability here can be high, so what might have been working before might not be working anymore. Also worth noting: if you are going off a calorie/macro count from 5-10 years ago understand that you are a different person now and those numbers are outdated.
Those are the big ones, though I am sure if I thought about this more I could come up with others. Of course I will have at least a few people say “it worked for me!” And to that I will say, yes something probably clicked and I am happy you found that sweet spot and it worked. But that doesn’t mean anything I said here is incorrect.
I guess what I want to ask you is: with all the uncertainty, is it worth it?