Should You Track Your Calories Burned?

“Calories in vs. Calories out.”

You have probably heard this phrase before pertaining to weight loss. It’s all about getting that energy balance right. In order to lose weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit. End of story. If you want to know how to be in a calorie deficit click here.

Accurately tracking the calories you put into your body can be hard enough as it is, but should you be keeping track of the calories you burn?

If you have ever stepped on a treadmill, an elliptical, or the stair-master, you might notice that among many other features, the machine also tells you how many calories you are burning or burned during your cardio session. All of the new fancy fitness devices like the Fitbit and Apple watch also possess this feature, and if you are not careful, MyFitnessPal ( a calorie tracking app ) will actually add calories back into your calorie goal to make up for the calories that you supposedly burned throughout the day. If you are trying to stay in a calorie deficit, this can be particularly problematic.

Before we go any further: If you are tracking your food/calories/macros with MyFitnessPal do yourself a solid and turn off the feature that adds your calories burned back into your calorie allowance.

Go into MFP Click on settings. Then, click on goals.

At the bottom you will see something that says Fitness goals. Click on that.

Then you will see that you can turn the exercise calorie adjustment feature off.

Did you turn it off?

I’ll wait.

Okay, good. Let’s move forward.

Let’s talk about the accuracy of these “calories burned” features.

Calorie expenditure can differ from person to person depending on your individual metabolism. This is why it can be problematic to rely on the accuracy of a fitness tracker.

When it comes to “calories in”: It can be a little easier to control/track, but the “calories out” side of the energy balance equation is more complicated.

“Calories out” is also known as your “Total Daily Energy Expenditure” (TDEE) and consists of 4 basic components:

1. Basal Metabolic Rate:

   The amount of energy your body requires to run basic processes.

2. Non Exercise Adaptive Thermogenesis (NEAT) and Non Exercise Physical

   Activity (NEPA):

   NEAT: is the amount of energy you spend doing unconscious little movements throughout the day that aren’t actually exercise like fidgeting, or wiggling your toes, or etc.

   NEPA: These are more conscious/voluntary movements like standing, walking etc. that are not designated as exercise throughout your day.

3. Exercise activity (EA): The amount of calories burned during exercise activity.

4. Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). The amount of calories your body burns just digesting food. ( Yes, you do burn some calories digesting food but don’t go thinking you are going to burn off that burger just by digesting it. ). Different foods have different thermic effects. Generally foods higher in fiber and protein require more energy to digest and therefore have a higher thermic effect. Eat your veggies and protein kids.

To make things even more complicated, your TDEE can vary from day to day depending upon your activity, food intake, and many other factors. That doesn’t mean you should totally discount the “calories out” side of the equation, it just means that you shouldn’t depend on that number being 100% accurate.

If you have been trying to lose weight and are heavily weighing in the number of calories burned that you are being given by your fitness tracker but you are not seeing any progress, chances are you are not in a calorie deficit. This could be for a few reasons.

1. You are not burning as many calories as your tracker is estimating for you.

2. You are not tracking your food/calories as accurately as you might think.

   Are you using a food scale and logging absolutely everything? ( Even those chips you ate while deciding if you wanted to eat chips? Or, that handful of granola you swooped up while you decided what to make for breakfast? ).

3. Your original calorie estimation is too high and you will need to drop your calories. ( see my last post on how to figure this out. )

If you are starting to feel overwhelmed by all of this information, and are feeling the urge to want to throw your fitbit off a roof and say fuck it…take a deep breath. We don’t want to or need to rely on these devices to tell us if we are in a calorie deficit. That is what tracking your progress is for. Which I laid out for you in my last post.

The bad news: The accuracy of your fitness trackers may be off by about 25%

The good news: You don’t need a fitness tracker to lose weight or get fit.

I am not against fitness trackers. I think they can be a great way to keep yourself accountable and encourage you to create new healthy habits, but just like with the scale: Don’t get too obsessed over the numbers. The data is just a tool but sometimes the numbers don’t give you the whole picture.

My favorite feature of a fitness tracker is the step counter because it encourages you to get more movement throughout your day. ( More steps throughout your day is part of the NEAT category I talked about earlier ).

More movement throughout your day = more calories burned…or as the fitness industry likes to say: “It boosts your metabolism.” ( metabolism is a whole other article topic ).

Don’t obsess about your “calories burned” estimations. Your biggest indicator that you are on the right track is always going to be keeping track of your progress.

When it comes to fitness trackers, the accuracy of the numbers isn’t the main focus— it is YOUR consistency.

Even if your fitness tracker isn’t 100% accurate— let’s say you consistently get in “10,000 steps” per day. Maybe you actually had more steps and it slightly undercounted them, or maybe it slightly over-counted your steps. You are still hitting that number within 25% each day. Hitting your steps consistently within 25% each day is still going to burn a lot more calories than not hitting any steps at all. ( Or very minimal amounts. )

You are much better off focusing on tracking your progress while tracking your “calories in” and then adjusting when needed. Don’t over complicate it, and stay consistent.

Continuous Glucose Monitoring For Better Health?

I try to stress that dietary needs can be very individual and sometimes it can take some trial and error to figure out a way of eating that works best for you. If anyone ever tells you that keto, paleo, carnivore, veganism, etc. etc. is 100% the best diet for everyone then you should turn around and run in the other direction as fast as possible. Sure, some of these diets might work great for some people, but that doesn’t mean it is what is right for you. Although we are all human ( well, hopefully you are ) we can all have different responses to food. One of those responses being glucose levels.

You may have heard some of the biggest contributors to Covid19 complications are: obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. These are all part of our metabolic health.

The word metabolism gets thrown around a lot in the fitness industry. You may have seen products claim that they will “boost” your metabolism or you may have heard Karen talk about her slow metabolism over lunch. But what exactly is metabolism?

Metabolism is the set of cellular mechanisms that produce energy from our food and environment to power every process in the human body. 

Metabolism may be a fitness buzzword but its actually quite broad and complex. It is not just about how many calories you burn or don’t burn. It involves all the systems in the body. Metabolism regulates our sleep, appetite, and energy levels. It is what keeps us alive.

Unfortunately a vast majority of the US population struggles with their metabolic health mostly due to poor nutrition and exercise habits.

Statistics from the CDC:

Diabetes:

• Total: 34.2 million people have diabetes (10.5% of the US population)

• Diagnosed: 26.9 million people, including 26.8 million adults

• Undiagnosed: 7.3 million people (21.4% are undiagnosed)

Pre-diabetes:

• Total: 88 million people aged 18 years or older have prediabetes (34.5% of the adult US population)

• 65 years or older: 24.2 million people aged 65 years or older have prediabetes

Considering uncontrolled diabetes is one of the leading causes of complications from Covid19 it really got me digging deeper into prevention and ways to improve metabolic health even for the average “healthy” individual such as myself.

I stumbled across a company called Levels that is doing something called Continuous Glucose Monitoring for healthy individuals looking to improve their metabolic health, find their optimal diet, or improve their sports performance. CGM ( Continual Glucose Monitoring ) is common among diabetics but it is now being used for people to get more specific data about their current health.

According to the ADA the standard guidelines for glucose levels are:

You have probably had your fasted glucose tested at least once in your life via a blood test, but it turns out post meal glucose levels can also be important in regards to your health.

“High post-meal glucose levels are linked to worsened glucose control over time, development of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, and impaired exercise and cognitive performance. While it is not unexpected for glucose levels to increase after a meal as the glucose from the meal is released into the blood, if this level is too high it is not good for health and can predispose one to disease over time.  According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) guidelines for the management of post-meal glucose levels, nondiabetic people should have a glucose level of no higher than 140 mg/dl after meals, and glucose should return to pre-meal levels within 2-3 hours. Post-meal hyperglycemia (elevated glucose) is defined as a glucose level >140 mg/dl 1-2 hours after ingestion of food or drinks.”

After doing more research about metabolic health and disease prevention, I got super curious about my own metabolic health and how different foods affect me. I’ve tried a variety of different diets throughout my life to see what I felt optimal on. I had a pretty rough struggle with IBS for years. I’ve been vegan/vegetarian, and then moved on to more of a “paleo” type of diet. Eventually I fell upon a diet that is just sticking to whole foods as much as possible. I’ve got no labels for it, I just avoid foods that don’t make me feel great, and stick to eating foods that my body seems to agree with.

Although I feel great with how I am eating now, I am a nerd and I love data and insight to how my body reacts to what I am eating. CGM takes a bit of the guesswork out for you which I find kind of amazing. I am always down to make some improvements with my diet based off data that I can’t ignore.

So far I am on day two of using the Levels CGM program. It has been quite fascinating to see real time data about how my body uses the food I eat, and how exercise has an effect on my glucose levels as well. For example: If I drink a kombucha while I am working, I will see my blood sugar spike up into the 100’s, but if I drink a kombucha and take a walk after, it tends to stay in the 90’s. It just show’s how important both diet and exercise can be when it comes to metabolic health.

It can be easy to ignore your nutrition when the effects of your questionable choices take years to build up. With this program showing you in real time how food affects your body, it makes it much harder to ignore. This could be a game changer for those having a hard time making a connection with health and food choices. Then again, i’ve seen plenty of people ignore data…but hopefully this data will hit on a more personal level.

I might continue to document my own experience on here with Levels/CGM for shits and giggles. Looking forward to finding more info out about my own health!

If you want to know more go to www.levelshealth.com

Oh and if you are wondering… no I didn’t get paid for this. I actually had to pay for the sensors and program, I am just really excited about it because I am a nerd.

This is why I always have a hard time answering the question “What do you like to do for fun?” — I like to collect data about my metabolism and write about health and fitness. Definitely have no idea why I am single.

Let me know your thoughts!