“I eat healthy, but I still can’t lose weight.” I hear this one so much from frustrated clients who are putting in an earnest effort, but the pounds just won’t go. Is your metabolism broken? Is it your hormones? Is it something else?

In this article, we’ll explore this mysterious and frustrating phenomenon.

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Original source: here.

Why You’re Not Losing Weight

The answer is simple: you’re eating more calories than you think. And I know – your nutrition tracker says that you’re only eating 1,500-1,800 calories per day. But it’s lying. I’ve written in the past about how bad almost every single nutrition tracker is. You can check that out here. Most of them underestimate calories by as much as 25%.

Tell me how much you weigh, and I’ll tell you how many calories you’re eating (within 10% of your actual calories). I don’t even need to know exactly what or how much you’re eating. I just need to know your weight, and I’ll be able to tell you your calories better than a nutrition tracking app. It’s extremely simple: you are eating the exact right number of calories to maintain your current weight. If you’re happy with your weight, keep it up. If you’re not happy with your weight, change it.

Here’s a ballpark of how many calories you’re eating (knowingly or unknowingly):

  • If you’re a 150-pound male: 1,687
  • If you’re a 150-pound female: 1,507
  • If you’re a 160-pound male: 1,760
  • If you’re a 160-pound female: 1,562
  • If you’re a 170-pound male: 1,834
  • If you’re a 170-pound female: 1,618
  • If you’re a 180-pound male: 1,907
  • If you’re a 180-pound female: 1,673
  • If you’re a 190-pound male: 1,920
  • If you’re a 190-pound female: 1,727
  • If you’re a 200-pound male: 2,054
  • If you’re a 200-pound female: 1,782
  • If you’re a 210-pound male: 2,128
  • If you’re a 210-pound female: 1,837
  • If you’re a 220-pound male: 2,201
  • If you’re a 220-pound female: 1,892

 

These numbers make the assumption that you’re completely sedentary. If you are even moderately active (you walk around occasionally at work, or you exercise lightly 1-3 days/week), these numbers increase by about 20%. The more active you are, the more these numbers increase.

Want to know how bad we are at predicting our own calories? In one study, 30 obese women were shown 10 common foods (cottage cheese, roast turkey, green beans, boiled ham, cooked spaghetti, coke, potato chips, blueberries, 1 slice of bread, 1 glass of orange juice). They were actually shown these foods – not pictures of these foods. They were then asked to estimate the calories of each individual item. On average, they were off by 53%. In other words, if they think they’re eating 1,800 calories per day, the reality is actually closer to 2,754.

Another very similar study found that people’s caloric estimates were 35% off. If they thought they were eating 2,000 calories per day, they were realistically eating 2,700 calories/day.

“But I have a slow metabolism”, I often hear. And I believe you. However, how slow is a slow metabolism? In most cases, a truly slow metabolism is only 5-10% slower than a normal metabolism. One study found that otherwise healthy adults with a slow metabolism are only about 10% slower than a normal metabolism. Another study found a 9% difference in metabolism between normal-weight individuals and obese individuals.

But remember – metabolism isn’t the only thing that contributes to caloric expenditure. So does basic daily living, exercise, etc. It’s only metabolism that’s slower. If a person burns 2,000 calories per day, maybe only about 1,300 calories are burned due to metabolism (with the remaining 700 calories being burned by other methods). If a person has a slow metabolism, instead of burning 1,300 calories/day, they might burn 1,170 calories per day from metabolism, and 1,870 calories in total). Slow metabolisms truly do exist, but their effects are really overblown.

The plot thickens even more. Lots of people claim to be eating low calories, and are unable to lose weight. Researchers want to find out why – are they underestimating their calories? Do they have ridiculously slow metabolisms? Is there another explanation? So research was done.

We know that you can’t rely on people’s self-reporting, because well… we suck at that, as you learned earlier. So rather than asking people how many calories they’re eating, this study was done under very strict conditions. It’s called a “metabolic ward” study. What’s a metabolic ward? It’s a special hospital or research facility where everything a person eats, drinks and does is closely monitored by scientists. In other words, subjects in metabolic ward studies don’t live at home, where they have access to their own fridge, cupboards, and UberEATS.

This was a very well-designed study (am I the only one who gets excited about well-designed studies?). The researchers recruited 90 obese people. The researchers asked these obese folks how many calories per day they eat. Then, in the metabolic ward, they were given the exact number of calories that they claimed. They lost 4.9 lbs. per week.

This isn’t the only study of its kind. Other studies have been done to replicate these results.

If you have a dog or cat as a pet, and they’re getting a little chunky, what do you do? Feed them less. It’s that simple. What happens when people get a little chunky? We blame our hormones, go on juice cleanses, buy “metabolism-boosting” supplements, etc. What do we forget to do? Exactly what we do to our pets – eat less.

 

It’s Not Your Fault

It’s not like people are being deceitful on purpose. After all, people are trying to lose weight, they’re just not doing it successfully. The only obvious rule is if you think you’re in a caloric deficit, but you’re not losing weight, then you’re not in a caloric deficit.

So why is it so difficult to estimate our calories? For a few different reasons:

  1. Misjudging portion sizes. You know how you read that a tablespoon of peanut butter is 90 calories? That’s for a flat tablespoon. How many of us get a heaping tablespoon, and lick the peanut butter on the bottom of the spoon? That’s not 90 calories. That’s more like 160 calories.
  2. Some foods are natural, therefore, people underestimate their calories. In their minds “natural” has a halo effect, and can do no wrong. The biggest culprits here are nuts, oils (like olive oil) and avocados. After all they’re all natural – that’s true. But something can be both natural and high in calories. They’re not mutually exclusive.
  3. Wishful thinking. Sometimes, that’s really the case.
  4. Mixed ingredients. If you’re eating a stew, casserole, etc., you may not know how much of each ingredient there is.
  5. In North America, nutrition labels are allowed to be off by as much as 20%. If you think you’re eating a 500-calorie meal, it might be 600. Combine that with how poor our perception is of serving sizes, and it’s easy to see how we can underestimate our calories by 50%.
  6. As mentioned earlier, nutrition tracking apps suck.
  7. Snacks don’t “register” in our minds. So a nibble here and there can add up.

 

How to Actually Track Better

If you love counting calories (or at least tolerate it), and you want to have any semblance of accuracy, get a food scale. Your eyeballs aren’t calibrated. We already know that we’re bad at estimating serving sizes, so don’t rely on your perceptions. Rely on objective reality.

Another tip is if you eat packaged food, with a label that tells you the calories, add 20% to it. Remember – it’s legal to be off by 20%.