Not Losing Weight? You’re Probably Lying to Yourself About Your Calorie Intake…

If you’re ‘doing everything right’, but not losing weight… You’re probably lying to yourself about your calorie intake.

That’s quite a bold statement, but it’s true. It’s not just an opinion, by the way, it’s something that scientific research has backed up. In many cases, self-reported calorie intake is significantly lower than actual calorie intake.

I’ve been helping people to lose weight for 20 years now, and the diet rules haven’t changed. In order to lose weight (fat), you need to be in a calorie deficit. The longer you maintain the deficit, the more weight you lose.

Weight loss is simple, but not easy.

When I first started working as a personal trainer in the early 2000s, we didn’t have apps to help track calories. It was pen and paper back then. Not all foods had their calorie information posted on them, so the process was much more involved. You had to really put some effort into tracking your calories.

In more recent years, technology has made it easier. Apps like MyFitnessPal make tracking your calories a much more streamlined process.

You still need to control the calories you eat, though.

This blog post has been inspired by a few recent interactions I’ve had, where people have mentioned struggling to lose weight, despite the fact that they claim they’ve been doing everything right. This is rarely the case, because if you’re doing everything right – eating at an appropriate calorie deifict, training well and sleeping well, it’s an almost scientific certainty that you’ll lose weight.

Hence, your weight loss journey must be built on a foundation of consistent, accurate habits rather than perfection or quick fixes. This is achievable with the guidance of a personalised health coach, who can recommend a comprehensive program tailored to your needs.

So what goes wrong?

Fundamentally, it’s a question of misrecording of what you’re consuming. Calories come in two forms – solid and liquid. Calorie tracking isn’t just about food; it’s about what you drink as well. There are 210 calories in a 500ml bottle of Coca Cola. If you have a couple of those per day and don’t record them, that’s 420 calories per day you’re not reporting. Over a week, it’s nearly 3000 calories you’ve not accounted for.

When you’ve fed the kids, if you eat the little bit of leftover food when clearing the plates, that might add up to 100-200 calories. If you aren’t recording it, you’ve missed out on possibly thousands of calories per week.

How Common is Misrecording Calorie Intake?

The short answer is… very.

In a 2020 study titled ‘Traditional Self-Reported Dietary Instruments Are Prone to Inaccuracies and New Approaches Are Needed‘, researchers found that when people self-report their calorie intake, they underestimate by 5-20%, which is a huge problem.

If you’re under-reporting your calorie intake by 20%, it’s no wonder you aren’t losing weight! Reporting discipline is just as important as calorie intake discipline.

The interesting point here is in the psychology of those who say they’ve ‘tried everything’, because they’re already setting themselves up to fail. Theyir mindset is one of defeat from the start, rather than a willingness to explore the problems further.

As I said earlier, it’s a physical impossibility to maintain or gain weight if you’re in an energy deficit.

Under-reporting of Activity is Also an Issue

To compound the findings of the study I’ve just mentioned, further investigations show that people who claim they can’t lose weight also over-report their activity levels.

A landmark study from 1992 titled ‘Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects‘ reviewed people who claimed they suffered from dietary resistance (essentially difficulty losing weight, despite ‘doing the right things’). The researchers assessed the physiology of the dietary resistance group and ruled out any underlying physiological issues causing slow weight loss.

The researchers concluded ‘the subjects in group 1 underreported their actual food intake by an average (+/- SD) of 47 +/- 16 percent and overreported their physical activity by 51 +/- 75 percent.’

Let that sink in. The people who claimed they ‘couldn’t lose weight’ were underreporting how much they were eating by an average of 47%, and overreporting how much exercise they were doing by an average of 51%.

There are Rarely Special Cases

There’s little doubt that people lose weight at different rates, but what remains true is that everyone can lose weight as long as they stick to the principle of a calorie deficit.

The most important thing is to find a diet that you can stick to for the long term.

In a 2023 study titled ‘Factors that predict weight loss success differ by diet intervention type‘, the researchers put the subjects onto one of three different diet types…

1. Low fat
2. Low carb
3. Low calorie

They concluded… ‘Regardless of diet type, the most robust predictor of weight loss success was completion of the intervention, accounting for 20–30% of the variance.‘

In English, it doesn’t matter which diet you do, AS LONG AS YOU STICK TO IT!

Important Points to Take Away About Calorie Intake

I like to leave a reader with important points that they can take away from an article, so here’s your bullet points to remember regarding calorie intake…

• If you’re not losing weight, it’s almost certainly not because you can’t… it’s probably because you’re not recording your calorie intake properly.
• Everything counts, not just your meals. Record your drinks, record your snacks, record the bits you ‘pick at’.
• You need to record your activity levels too. I’d suggest using a heart rate monitor. If you ‘guess’, you’re probably overexaggerating your calorie expenditure.
• Honesty is the best policy. Don’t just record the good things you eat – record everything you eat!
• Disciple wins out.

As I said earlier, weight loss is simple, but it’s not easy. Create a calorie deficit through controlling your calorie intake and exercising to increase calorie expenditure. Maintain that until you’ve reached your deisred outcome.

If you want to follow me and my life in more detail, come and catch me on Instagram!