We don’t count calories because calorie-counting, a popular dietary approach, is sometimes flawed in its philosophy. It’s easier to track not eating sugar/carbs and not eating artificial sugars than to actually count the calories and grams. Tracking and reliving the calories of carbohydrates you didn’t eat only stimulates ghrelin, the hunger hormone. And focusing on feeling deprived of something only makes you want it more.
It’s easier to track pounds of steak, fish, shrimp, or chicken than calories. It’s not what you didn’t eat that matters. It’s what you did eat and who you are. You are a person that doesn’t eat sugars (artificial or natural). You don’t fall prey to the big processed food manufacturers. And you know the truth about vegetable oil.
It’s easier to track the hours of healthy eating than calories. If you know you will only eat in a limited time window of 6 to 8 hours per day, the rest of your time is free for real activity.
Even if you did track calories very carefully, you would be off by as much as 20-50%. Even if you were absolutely perfect at tracking the actual calories, your math wouldn’t account for the bio-availability of nutrients (how much your body can actually take in), the effect of antinutrients from vegetables, or the thermic effect of food (the energy you burn digesting it). Your resting metabolic calorie need changes from day to day, hour to hour, and season to season. Your gut microbiome determines how nutrients are absorbed. It changes all the time and interacts with your Enteric Nervous System and Central Nervous System.
Instead of calorie counting, practice hara hachi bu. It is a Confucian teaching that tells people to eat until they are 80 percent full. “Eat until you are eight parts (out of ten) full” or “belly 80 percent full.” Simple changes to your eating patterns or the environment will dramatically increase the joy of food.
- First, eat more slowly. Eating faster results in eating more. Slow down so your body can respond to cues that tell us we are no longer hungry. You have a hormone called leptin that lets you know you are full. But if you wolf down your food, it doesn’t have enough time to work. Focus on food. Turn off the TV and the computer. If you’re going to eat, just eat. Also, use small plates and tall, narrow glasses.
Next, cut out all the snacks. People eat from boredom or they eat from chemical signaling. Most of this chemical signaling can be eliminated when you remove artificial flavors, refined sugars, and industrial seed oils.
Finally, cut out breakfast, unless it is one of your two meals of the day and it falls inside your eating window. Regular breakfast eating increases weight and insulin resistance by adding unnecessary calories to diets. You probably have the mantra “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” stuck in your head. This was a baseless marketing phrase created in 1944 by General Foods to sell more cereal. John Harvey Kellogg of the Kellogg’s cereal company was a deeply religious Seventh-day Adventist. He believed that cereal would improve Americans’ health and keep them from masturbating and desiring sex. Before the invention of cereal (to reduce masturbation), breakfast was not as standard or routine. Kellogg might actually have been half right — breakfast didn’t improve health. But increasing feeding frequency with processed cereal foods results in more insulin resistance and worsened male impotence.
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l42
The bottom line: if you are eating real food, your willpower is better spent somewhere other than calorie counting and calorie restriction. Remember, you are retraining your body to know when it’s actually full and what real hunger is. Your goal is to eat only when truly hungry.
Cutting out breakfast and limiting food to a 6 to 8 hour period of a given day makes this simple. Get rid of the artificial flavorings, artificial and refined sugars, and refined foods. Healthy fat makes you satiated for a long time. Satiety and the nutrient density of food are the ultimate test.
It’s not what you didn’t eat that matters. It’s what you did eat and who you are. You are a person that doesn’t eat sugars (artificial or natural). You don’t fall prey to the big processed food manufacturers. And you know the truth about vegetable oil.
Frequently asked questions
Should I count calories or just eat healthy?
Eat real food and skip the counting. If you are eating real food, your willpower is better spent somewhere other than calorie counting and calorie restriction. Track what you eat and when you eat it instead: no sugars, artificial or natural, no processed food, no vegetable oil, and every meal inside a 6 to 8 hour window. Satiety and the nutrient density of food are the real test.
What’s wrong with counting calories?
The numbers are wrong and the habit backfires. Even careful tracking runs off by as much as 20 to 50 percent. No count accounts for bioavailability, antinutrients, the thermic effect of food, a resting metabolism that shifts hour to hour, or a gut microbiome that keeps changing. Reliving the carbohydrates you skipped also stimulates ghrelin, the hunger hormone. It also makes the food you gave up more desirable.
What should I do instead of counting calories?
Practice hara hachi bu: eat until you are 80 percent full. Eat slowly so leptin, the hormone that tells you that you are full, has time to work, and turn off the TV and the computer while you eat. Cut out snacks, drop breakfast unless it is one of your two meals inside your eating window, and remove artificial flavors, refined sugars and industrial seed oils.
Related reading
Sources
- Ebbeling CB, Feldman HA, Klein GL, et al. Effects of a low carbohydrate diet on energy expenditure during weight loss maintenance: randomized trial. BMJ. 2018. PMID 30429127
- Ludwig DS, Ebbeling CB. The carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity: beyond “calories in, calories out.” JAMA Internal Medicine. 2018. PMID 29971406
Medically reviewed by Dr. Gurpreet Singh Padda, MD, MBA, MHP
Interventional pain physician, addiction medicine specialist and obesity medicine diplomate.
Licensed in Missouri and Illinois.
Last reviewed June 17, 2026
