Why you may not have to track calories daily to lose weight

Tracking calories has been a proven way to lose weight, but a new study has found it may actually be unnecessary for dropping pounds.

A new study — conducted by weight loss company WW, formally known as Weight Watchers with researchers from the University of Connecticut, the University of Florida and the University of Pennsylvania — suggests that tracking your food about 40% of the time is enough to see a few pounds fall off.

Currently, many popular programs require people to track 100% of their calorie intake, which isn’t always feasible in the long run.

However, this study — published in the medical journal Obesity in June — shows a more relaxed approach can also work.

Researchers said the “key point” of the study is they found it’s unnecessary to track calories every day to lose a clinically significant amount of weight.

“It turns out, you don’t need to track 100% each day to be successful,” Ran Xu, an assistant professor in UConn’s Department of Allied Health Sciences said in a press release. “Specifically in this trial, we find that people only need to track around 30% of the days to lose more than 3% weight and 40% of the days to lose more than 5% weight, or almost 70% of days to lose more than 10% weight.”

The researchers tracked 153 people participating in a weight loss program for six months, all of them tracking their food intake using a commercial digital weight loss program.

They then divided the participants into three categories, based on how often they tracked their calories. They found the people who tracked the most often — about 70% of the time — lost the most weight overall, losing around 10% of body weight over six months.

The second group started tracking their food intake regularly, but dropped off by about the four-month mark to only one day per week, but still lost about 5% of their weight.

The third group only tracked three days a week and had stopped tracking by the three month mark, losing about 2% of their weight in the allotted time.

Co-author and Department of Allied Health Sciences Professor Sherry Pagoto reiterated the goal of a six-month weight loss program is typically 5% to 10% of weight, which is the range where health benefits typically kick in, as seen in previous clinical trials.

“A lot of times people feel like they need to lose 50 pounds to get healthier, but actually we start to see changes in things like blood pressure, lipids, cardiovascular disease risk and diabetes risk when people lose about 5 to 10% of their weight,” Pagoto said. “That can be accomplished if participants lose about one to two pounds a week, which is considered a healthy pace of weight loss.”

Many experts agree that counting calories isn’t necessarily a good long-term way to maintain weight loss, but it can help in making people aware of the caloric intake of different foods and adjust portions.

“Counting calories can help you lose weight, but it has pros and cons, and it isn’t right for everyone,” the University of Pittsburgh article noted. “Long-term weight loss is about learning what’s in your food and making lasting behavior changes that promote healthy choices.”

Earlier in the year, an epidemiologist and dietician in the UK, Tim Spector, said people should focus on the quality of their food instead of calories.

Strict calorie counting may allow people to lose weight, but it also often “deprives” dieters, said Spector. “Your body’s evolutionary mechanisms will make you hungrier and hungrier every week you go by when you’re depriving yourself of energy.”

However, a study — published in January in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that calorie counting still the most effective way to shed any unwanted pounds.