Should you count calories for weight loss?

I am not a fan of very low calorie diets because guess what, it makes people miserable, it’s very bad for your health and makes you much more likely to pile on more weight afterwards.

I believe in eating healthy food in abundance and just enough calories to sustain you but also allow you to release excess weight.

Although I don’t generally don’t count calories to lose weight, I do believe it can be helpful to be aware of the calories in your food when you are trying to lose weight so you can get an idea of portion sizes and plan future meals accordingly.  

Just the process of tracking everything you eat will help you reach your goals a lot faster.  So many people eat while they are watching TV and aren’t even aware of everything they have eaten.  So forcing yourself to write down every bite that enters your mouth can help you to become aware of your behaviour.  

I don’t recommend doing it for a long time as it can lead to obsession, but at least for a couple of weeks it is a good idea to count your calories or at the bare minimum, write down everything you eat.

I am a big believer in eating real unprocessed food, and when you fill up on these types of foods it is much easier to lose weight.  

However some people can still struggle with their weight despite eating all the right foods, so it may help to look at the number of calories you need and try and eat less than your body needs.

Use this calculator to find out how many calories your body needs a day.  Click here to get the calculator.

Now if you take 500 calories off your daily energy expenditure figure, you should lose 1 pound a week.  

However not all calories are created equal so if you’re still eating processed foods you may still struggle to lose weight.  

If you are eating whole unprocessed foods you may find that you lose more weight especially at the start of your diet.  If you want to lose more weight than 1 pound a week then I would suggest increasing your exercise rather than decreasing your calories.

Have you ever calculated how many calories you eat for breakfast?

Surprisingly most people eat far few calories and completely the wrong type of food for breakfast – if they have breakfast at all!

A bowl of cereal may be very low in calories – but it’s very high in sugar.

That’s why 1 hour later, you are starving again.

That’s why I not only eat MORE calories for breakfast but I make sure the types of ingredients I use will give me sustained energy all day long and fill me up until my next meal.

When I make Green Thickies (complete meal Green Smoothies) they are generally between 350 and 550 calories per serving!  

This is a substantial filling breakfast that should keep you going all morning.

You may actually be horrified at the number of calories in this smoothie.  

You might be thinking “I don’t normally eat that many calories for breakfast” or perhaps you don’t normally have breakfast at all.  So I do understand where you are coming from, but let me just say this – don’t knock this until you try it.  

You know that old saying ‘to lose weight you must have breakfast’ it’s pretty accurate for most people.  The reason why is because most people have very low blood sugar because of all the processed foods and refined sugar they’ve been eating, so most people can’t make it through the morning without anything to eat.  And have you ever noticed that if you skip breakfast, you get half way through the morning and you feel starving. So you eat whatever is available and usually that is not a healthy choice.

So you see it’s counterintuitive for most people to skip breakfast.  Far better to eat a reasonable number of calories that will realistically keep you going until lunch time, enabling you to avoid desperating and make a sensible choice for lunch.

What I’ve noticed is the more unprocessed my diet becomes, the less I need to wake up and eat breakfast straight away and I don’t get that starving, feeling like I’m going to pass out if I don’t eat.

Have you ever heard of intermittent fasting?  The thought of skipping a meal on purpose may terrify you.  I used to feel the same, but after a couple of years of eating mainly real food, it actually became easy to skip breakfast and not even feel any hunger at all.  Unlike the weak shaky mess I’d be when I used to eat cereal for breakfast.

Did you know that what you eat for dinner also makes such a big impact on how you feel the next day?

By observing my client and my own patterns, I have generally found that most people can withstand their sugar cravings and continue to lose weight by having a healthy and filling breakfast such as this weight loss smoothie.

Try Green Thickies Fat Burner smoothie every day for a week and really notice the difference in terms of how balanced your blood sugar levels are and how full you are feeling after it.  You should also notice that you are naturally making better choices for the rest of the day.

Just click this link and type your email address in the next screen to get immediate access to this recipe.

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Katherine Kyle @ Green Thickies

Founder at Green Thickies

Katherine lost 56 pounds and recovered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome with Green Thickies.
Read Katherine's inspiring comeback story, From Fat and Fatigued To Lean and Loving Life In 4 Months.
Send Katherine a message on Instagram, Facebook, or email here.

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