How To Lose Weight Without Counting Calories

I think everyone should count calories. 

Not forever, but at least for a one to three month time period. 

Counting calories is a phenomenal tool to learn how many calories are in the foods you eat every day. Studies show that we are very bad at estimating how much we eat (1).

It can also be the quickest way to see results because you aren’t guessing. 

By first figuring out how many calories you need, and then accurately measuring and tracking what you eat, you can get to your goal in the shortest amount of time possible. 

Learning to count calories is a skill. It takes time to learn but once you’ve mastered it, you’ll have a very good idea of how many calories you need and you won’t need to count forever. At this stage, you’ll know what 6 ounces of chicken breast looks like, how much 100 grams of rice takes up on your plate, or what a serving size of peanut butter is. 

It’s this stage that I think everyone should strive to reach. You’ll be able to adjust your diet based on your goal without measuring or weighing anything.

To reach that stage, you need to count calories for a period of time to master that skill before you can estimate how much food you’re eating without measuring it. 

Even though your weight loss will be quicker and you’ll learn habits that can set you up for the rest of your life, you don’t need to count calories to lose weight.

The only thing you need to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit. 

This simply means burning more calories than you consume. 

The strategies I outline below will help make sure you are in a calorie deficit without counting your calories. Just know that your weight loss progress might not be as fast and you won’t learn skills that can set you up for the rest of your life.

If you’re okay with that, then keep reading for some practical tips on how to lose weight without counting calories!

Prioritize protein

If losing weight is your goal, every meal you eat should be centered around protein.

Protein helps you stay full for longer than carbohydrates or fats (2). When you’re in a calorie deficit, you’re probably going to get hungry. The more you can keep those hunger cravings at bay, the longer you’ll be able to stay in a calorie deficit and stay on track to lose weight.

Protein also has the highest thermic effect of food, or TEF. This means that your body burns more calories digesting protein than it does carbohydrates or fats. In practical terms, this means that if you compare a diet that’s high in protein and one that is low in protein, you’ll burn more calories on the high protein diet (it’s not a huge number of calories, but it can still add up over the course of weeks and months).

Making sure you eat enough protein will ensure that you lose mostly fat, not muscle (3). When people talk about wanting to lose weight, what they really mean is that they want to lose fat. Keeping muscle while losing body fat is what will give guys a muscular look and girls a curvy, toned look. Losing too much muscle is how you end up with the dreaded skinny-fat look.

Eat more single ingredient foods 

While it’s true that you need to create a calorie deficit to lose weight, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to eat less food.

Highly processed foods that have many ingredients generally taste better and can lead to overeating, and studies have shown this to be true. In one study, adults were split into two groups; one group was fed highly processed meals and one group was fed unprocessed meals. The meals were the exact same number of calories, and the subjects in the study were told to eat as much or as little as they wanted. Not surprisingly, the adults who were on the unprocessed diet tended to eat less and lost weight and the adults on the highly processed diet ate more and tended to gain weight (4). 

Single ingredient foods like fruits, vegetables, oats, and potatoes are lower in calories and have a higher fiber content than processed foods. Higher fiber diets have been shown to increase satiety compared to low fiber diets (5).

Check out the pictures below.

The oatmeal, blueberries, strawberries and eggs on the left (4 ingredients) and the scone on the right (25 ingredients) both have 470 calories. 

Which breakfast looks like more food? 

Which do you think is going to fill you up more?

Cut out liquid calories

When you’re in a calorie deficit, staying full is going to be key to staying consistent (are you seeing a pattern here?)

Drinks like coffee with cream and sugar, fruit juices, and alcohol contain a lot of calories and don’t fill you up for very long.

Making swaps for zero calorie drinks like seltzer and diet sodas can be a good way to keep the drinks you like in your diet without the added calories.

The exception here are protein shakes. Protein shakes can be a great way to get more protein in your diet and can be relatively filling. Making a shake with ice, fruit, low calorie milk (low-fat skim milk, almond milk, and cashew milk) and nut butter (peanut butter, almond butter and cashew butter) can make a delicious snack or meal that’s relatively low calorie and pretty filling. 

Be mindful of dressings, sauces and oils

The calories from dressings, sauces and oils can add up quickly.

Which salad do you think has more calories?

The salad on the right has 100 more calories than the salad on the left! The only difference is the dressing. The salad on the left has 1/3 as much dressing as the salad on the right.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have sauces or dressings, but you do need to be mindful of how many calories are in them (even though you aren’t counting calories).

Here are some low calorie sauces to spice up your meals:

• • Hot Sauce (0 calories)
  • Low Sugar Ketchup (10 calories)
  • Hot Sauce (0 calories)
  • Sugar free BBQ sauce (10 calories)
  • Soy Sauce (10 calories)
  • Salsa (10 calories)
  • Sriracha (0 calories)

If you’re going out to eat or you’re at an event, you can ask for dressing on the side and just put a little sauce or dressing on whatever you’re eating.

Make sure you’re sleeping enough

You probably already know that when you’re low on sleep, you don’t tend to make the best decisions. It’s much easier to justify that late-night snack when you’ve just worked a long day and you’re low on sleep.

What you might not know is that sleep deprivation can mess with two important hormones in your body called leptin and ghrelin.

Leptin is a hormone that’s responsible for telling your brain that you’re full, and it decreases hunger signals. Ghrelin’s job is to signal your brain that you’re hungry. 

Studies have shown that sleeping less than eight hours per night leads to decreased leptin levels and increased ghrelin levels (6).

This means that when you’re low on sleep, your body will signal that you’re more hungry than usual, and it won’t signal that you’re full as well as when you’ve had a full night of sleep. 

Keep track of your daily steps

In order to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume. Most people assume that when you increase your activity level (by lifting weights or performing cardio) you’ll burn more calories, which will help with weight loss.

Of course increasing your activity level can help you burn more calories, but unfortunately it’s not that simple. 

To understand why, we need to look at our metabolism, or how our body converts food into energy and burns calories.

Our metabolism is made up of four parts:

Basal metabolic rate (BMR)- Your BMR is the amount of calories your body needs to perform basic functions like sleeping, breathing, and keeping your organs functioning. You can’t really change your BMR, although it will change as you lose weight and as you age.

Non-exercise associated thermogenesis (NEAT)- NEAT is the amount of calories you burn by doing unplanned exercise. NEAT can include things like walking, working, or any movements throughout the day like fidgeting.

Exercise associated thermogenesis (EAT)- Your body burns calories when you exercise, and this is your EAT. EAT includes strength training, cardio, and high intensity interval sessions.

Thermic effect of food (TEF)- When you eat food, your body requires a certain amount of calories to break it down and use it for energy. This is your TEF.

When you increase your planned exercise (EAT), often you will subconsciously decrease your unplanned activity (NEAT). This is called the constrained energy model (7).

Let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds, so you start lifting weights three days per week and performing low intensity steady state cardio twice weekly. Your body generally doesn’t want to change, so it compensates by performing less activity outside of the gym. 

A simple method to combat this that I learned about from fat loss expert Alwyn Cosgrove is to keep track of your daily steps. 

If you were taking 7,000 steps per day before you started to lose weight, and three weeks into it you’re taking 4,000 steps per day, it’s a safe bet that you’re burning less calories through NEAT. 

How many steps should you aim for? Studies show that taking between 7,000 and 8,000 steps per day is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality (8). 

Putting it all together

Now that you have all the building blocks of your weight loss plan without counting calories, it’s time to put them all together using the three meals two snacks method.

I learned about the three meals two snacks method from personal trainer Jordan Syatt. It’s a great template to help structure your day and incorporate all of the methods above. 

Every day, you’re going to have three meals and two snacks. 

• • Each meal must fit on ONE plate
  • Half the plate is veggies, a quarter of the plate is protein, and the rest is carbs and fats
  • Each snack must fit in the palm of your hand and be a protein, veggie or piece of fruit

If you’re going to be drinking, each drink replaces a snack. If you’re going to have more than two drinks, then enjoy yourself that night and just get back on track the next day. 

DON’T skip this step!

Even though you aren’t going to be tracking calories, it’s important that you still track your weight loss progress so you can make adjustments if needed. 

Here are three ways I have clients track progress:

#1: Weigh yourself every day

If you only weigh yourself every once in a while, you won’t get an accurate picture of what your weight actually is. There are a lot of factors that affect scale weight, and it will fluctuate every day. Taking your average weight over the course of a week will give you a much better picture and eliminate any emotional response to the scale. You should also weigh yourself first thing in the morning (after you’ve used the bathroom).

#2: Measurements every two weeks

You can take measurements at your bicep, at your waist (right around your belly button), and your hips (around the largest part of your butt). I’ve had clients who lost body fat but gained muscle, and the only way we were able to tell is by taking measurements because the number on the scale didn’t change.

#3: Progress pictures

A picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes it’s hard to see progress day-to-day. Taking pictures in the same (or similar) clothes, in the same position and using the same lighting is a great way to make sure you’re on track. 

Wrapping up

If you give all of these methods a shot for long enough, I guarantee you’ll lose weight. It might not be as fast as if you were counting calories, but these principles will work if you are consistent.

If you need help putting together a plan, I’ve got you covered. You can apply for coaching to see if we’d be a good fit for each other.

If you have any questions, leave them below!