Calorie counting can be a blessing and a curse.
It can help you understand what’s most important in helping you lose or gain weight. On the other hand, it can also be a tedious, time-consuming, and frustrating process plagued by questionable accuracy.
That’s why I recommend only tracking calorie intake rather than both intake and expenditure.
“But aren’t both calorie intake and expenditure important?”
Yes! Your calorie balance, and hence your weight control, depend on both calorie intake and expenditure. However, you don’t always need to track both to understand if you’re in a calorie balance.
However, calorie expenditure is probably a more consistent variable regarding calorie balance. If you stick to a normal workout routine and have consistent weekly habits, your total calorie expenditure probably won’t fluctuate much from one week to the next.
Calorie intake is much more prone to fluctuations, so tracking is more important. It’s also the easiest to influence through changes in diet, which makes it the ideal place to put your attention when making changes to your weight.
