Why measure/quantify food to reach your goal?

If you've enrolled under my program, you're probably already quantifying food (I hope so!). But, ever wondered why do other fitness coaches and I advocate for food quantification in order to reach your goal weight? Well here I am, breaking it down for you.

Now, you'd already know that whether your goal is weight loss or weight gain, energy balance is the way to go about it. For e.g., if you're up for fat loss, then you have to expend more energy than you intake.

Now, energy expenditure constitutes of your BMR, Activity, energy given out during food absorption. But, energy intake relies on just one thing- your food intake! And your intake will always be much higher (ideally) than what you expend. So, doesn't it make more sense to control your intake in order to reach your goal weight? Especially when food is something that you can better control and guage. (Oh! Stop relying on smart watches for calories burnt already!)

Now, energy from food can easily be guaged by using the calorific value mentioned for it (yeah, food scientists have already made our work easier). So, one can easily look at the Nutrition label on the backside of any food item and tell how many calories is it giving you (well, theoretically atleast. Because practically, a few environmental and physical factors can change that value, but for simplicity, let's consider the label value to be true).

Suppose a biscuit is of 40 calories (or kcals - its the same!). So, you'd know that it will provide you with 40kcals of energy after you eat it. In a way, you're measuring its energy providing capacity or we can say that - YOU'RE QUANTIFYING THAT BISCUIT! Yeah, simple no?

Now, did you know that this calorie labelling is also an approximate method!? And, what if I didn't tell you to have 1 or 2 or 3 biscuits and just told you to have "a handful crumbs of the biscuit". A handful crumbs OR a spoon of crumbs OR a bowl of crumbs can have different meaning/measurements for you and others. Why? Because your hand or spoon or bowl size can be different from others. And, thus, this will be another approximation on top of already approximated calorie value of the biscuit.

So, you and your friend could have just had a few crumbs of biscuits a day. But both of your weight results may vary because of this approximation. Result? Reactive frustration and confusion to the process. Some may directly condemn the process to not be working for them. When, the truth is that they didn't optimise the process!

ENTERS QUANTIFICATION! To mitigate this flaw and error in the process. And, instead of saying "a few crumbs of biscuits", we say- you can have 2 whole biscuits of 40kcal each. Did you see what we did there? We essentially fixed the process by giving you exact food quantity and exact food calorie value that leaves no room for confusion..and hence reactive frustration at the end. Even if you don't lose or gain as targeted, you'd atleast know which of these values you can increase or decrease further to create that required energy balance for yourself. All the data is on the table before you and data is the basis of all process today!

Plus, you're already quantifying things that matter - money, fuel, distance, time. Then, why not add another most important thing to this list, i.e. Food!? Also, if you're already quantifying your progress (no. of kgs down or up), then why not quantify the process too that will help you reach that progress!

Quantifying food will save you from being at wits end if you're not showing progress and will also help you to fine tune the process better. Because, it's all about the data that you have ln the table. Well, data and food both!