Is it important, or even necessary, to track your calories and macros if you’re aiming to lose weight?
Short answer: no.
Longer answer:
Sometimes tracking the numbers can be helpful – it can help you to keep track of what you’re eating, it can help you to keep your head in the game, and it can also give you confidence that you’re both reducing your intake yet still eating enough.
Likewise, when you’re trying to lose weight, although reducing your intake is definitely necessary, it is also important that you eat enough protein in order to avoid losing muscle mass. And so, tracking can help make sure you’re getting things right.
But, if you don’t track, is it going to stop your progress? Definitely not.
You see, most of us will get most of the way towards our goals by simply focusing on eating whole, real food most of the time.
This said, there are also times when calorie / macro tracking is absolutely a bad idea.
If you have or have had an unhealthy relationship with food, tracking what you eat might exacerbate those issues and you might achieve the opposite results to those you’re aiming for.
And, all of this said, tracking portion sizes with your hands is about as effective as tracking the actual numbers.
So, use the food trackers if you want to and if it’s appropriate for you and your history with food. But, you’re not missing out if you don’t want to do this.