The Importance of Calorie Counting:

Keeping track of the total number of calories you eat in a given day is quite easy once you get used to it. Once you have counted calories for awhile doing so will become second nature to you. You probably won’t even think about it anymore. You will just know how many calories you are taking in.
What are calories and what do they do for our bodies? A calorie is a unit of heat or energy. Our bodies use the calories we get from food as an energy source so that we can perform our daily life activities. The calories not burned off through these daily tasks (i.e. exercise, work, sleep etc.) are eventually converted into fat. This fat is then stored in our bodies resulting in weight gain. The following list is the five main reasons why calorie counting is so important.

Maintaining your Present Body Weight: 

If you have already lost a certain amount of weight, then the only way to keep it off is to honestly keep track of your daily intake of calories regardless of whether they come from foods that are good for you and ones that aren’t. For example, if you want to have a piece of chocolate you should have a daily (or weekly) allotment of calories you can use for indulging. By using this strategy, you will ensure that the amount of sweets or other goodies you eat is limited. However, you first need to know how many calories you can consume daily without putting any pounds back on.

Losing Fat:

In order for weight lose to occur, you must consume less calories than you burn off. Tracking your total food intake and counting calories will make the weight loss process much easier to achieve. If you eat a total number of calories below your weight maintenance caloric amount, you will gradually lose weight. If you do not keep track, it is very easy to go beyond the number of calories required to lose the desired number of pounds. Calories are found in the three forms of nutrients we eat including proteins, carbohydrates and fats. However, these nutrients vary in the amount of total calories they contain. Carbohydrates and protein provide us with approximately four calories/gram whereas fats contain around nine calories per gram. It should also be noted that alcohol is a significant source of calories at about seven calories per gram. This makes lowering your overall alcohol intake a very important part of any weight loss plan.

Building Muscle: 

If your goal is to gain lean muscle mass, it is also important to count your caloric intake because you need lots of extra calories to build muscle. If you combine a good training program with a surplus of healthy nutritious calories, you will build muscle mass over time.

Ensuring a Sufficient Intake of Essential Nutrients: 

A nutritious diet is extremely important to our overall health and state of well being. Consuming the appropriate number of calories, as well as eating the correct ratio of protein, carbohydrates and fats is crucial. Protein, fats and carbohydrates are all know as “macro-nutrients”. This means our bodies need them in large quantities. All these macro-nutrients have their own functions within the body. However, they also interact in order to perform these functions properly. If you count calories, you have a much better chance of ensuring you are getting the right amounts of essential protein, fat and carbohydrates.

Limiting Overeating: 

It is very easy to eat too much and while the occasional splurge is perfectly acceptable, if you continue to consume too many calories you will gain weight. Tracking your caloric intake will prevent you from overeating. Simply put, once you have accounted for your daily allotment of calories, it’s time to stop eating.
It is very important to count calories consistently to make sure you are in control of what is going on with your body. Eventually, you may be able to do this in your head rather than writing it down. While some may think that counting calories is tedious and not worth the time and effort, the advantages of calorie counting are worth it.