Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - The Great Calorie Counting LIE- How Legal Loopholes, App Errors & Your Microbiome are Messing with Your Weight Loss

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

Here’s an overview of what you can expect in today’s episode:00:34 - Intro02:31 - Calorie Need Calculations Really Kinda Suck 05:37 - Calorie Labels On Foods and Apps Are Notoriously Inaccurate07:58 - Our Gut Microbiome Impacts The Calories We Get From Food12:24 - We Just SUCK At Estimating Our Intake and Needs14:49 - Risks for Disordered Eating17:32 - Tips for Navigating Calorie Counting that ACTUALLY WorkReferences:Indirect Calorimetry in Clinical PracticeAbility of the Harris Benedict formula to predict energy requirements differs with weight history and ethnicityValidation of several established equations for resting metabolic rate in obese and nonobese peopleA cellular level approach to predicting resting energy expenditure: Evaluation of applicability in adolescentsNutrition labeling of foodEnergetic consequences of thermal and nonthermal food processingEffect of host genetics on the gut microbiome in 7,738 participants of the Dutch Microbiome ProjectRoles of gut microbiota and metabolites in overweight and obesity of childrenReview article: dietary fibre-microbiota interactionsHost-diet-gut microbiome interactions influence human energy balance: a randomized clinical trialThe portion size effect: Women demonstrate an awareness of eating more than intended when served larger than normal portionsCalorie counting and fitness tracking technology: Associations with eating disorder symptomatologyMy Fitness Pal Calorie Tracker Usage in the Eating DisordersThe Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over TimeTracking food leads to losing poundsReducing Calorie Intake May Not Help You Lose Body Weight Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider.If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com.  🥤 Check out my 2-in-1 Plant Based Probiotic Protein Powder, neue theory at www.neuetheory.com or @neuetheory and use my promo code BITEBACK20 to get 20% off your order! Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTERS ⤵️Neue Theory newsletterAbbey's Kitchen newsletter 🥞 FREE HUNGER CRUSHING COMBO™ E-BOOK! 💪🏼 FREE PROTEIN 101 E-BOOK! 📱 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchenTikTok: @abbeyskitchenYouTube: @AbbeysKitchen My blog, Abbey’s Kitchen www.abbeyskitchen.comMy book, The Mindful Glow Cookbook affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NoHtvf If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review with your thoughts and let me know who you want me to discuss next!

What does a healthy gut microbiome have to do with calorie counting? Get ready to have your mind blown. Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call it the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. Today we are diving deep into the most widely used diet tool in the weight loss toolbox, calorie counting. If you've ever tried to lose weight, you've probably heard that you need to eat fewer calories than you burn. Calories in versus calories out, the coveted calorie deficit formula.

And while of course a calorie deficit is a necessary prerequisite to weight loss, counting every sprig of parsley on your pasta and every step in your walk to work and expecting to see predictable weight loss outcomes is scientifically and psychologically flawed. So today we are getting into the science of strict calorie counting for weight loss. Is it the only way to see results or is it too fundamentally flawed to actually work?

Before we get into it, a quick note that this episode is not to disregard the obvious usefulness of calorie counting for a lot of people, but rather to shed light on some of its limitations and inaccuracies to help you see that perfection in this process is often a futile endeavour. And we're obviously talking about weight loss in detail today, which is not and should not be the goal for everyone. So if this is not supportive to your journey, please feel free to skip it and I'll see you next time.

Alrighty folks, let's talk calories. When we talk about counting calories, we're having to make some hopefully educated assumptions about how many calories our body needs to maintain its current body weight, how many calories we body needs to maintain its current body weight, how many calories we are burning through activity, and how many calories are in each of the foods we are eating in the specific quantities and forms we are eating them in. The problem is, the body isn't a perfect little calculator. And the calculators that

we do have don't accurately capture our unique body. So let's dive into some of these inaccuracies. Number 1. Calorie need calculations really just kinda suck. The energy expenditure, or the calorie output side of the calorie balance equation equation consists of four main components. Our resting metabolic rate, which is basically just what we burn at rest. Our NEAT, which stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which is all of your non-deliberate exercises or daily movements. Then there's the thermic effect of food, which is the energy it takes to digest and absorb nutrients. And then we have intentional exercise, which believe it or not only makes up about 5% of

most people's total calorie burn each day. Our resting metabolic rate makes up around 60-70% of our total energy expenditure. So it's kind of important to understand, but the only accurate way of determining this is through a very expensive scientific method called indirect calorimetry, which is generally done in a lab or hospital. So as an alternative, we often turn to online formulas to estimate our daily calorie needs. The problem with these formulas is that they're generalized for the wide population. But we know that muscle mass, climate, hormonal status, weight history,

ethnicity, and even your caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and medication use can influence our metabolism. One of the most common formulas used by online calculators is the Harris-Benedict equation, which has been shown to overestimate needs by as much as 27%. This could be the difference between a recommendation to eat 1500 calories versus 1900 calories, which is more than enough to throw off your progress. And even when we do try and account for weight, height, age and gender, people will still have unique body cell masses that can greatly impact their resting metabolic rate. Online calculators can also be inaccurate with exercise, especially when it requires individuals to grade their own activity level. It is all too easy for

us to overestimate the amount or intensity of the activity we're doing, especially with all these natural variations day to day and activity to activity. And even if you're logging your workouts on a smartwatch, we know that those are not accurate either. Studies comparing the calories burned according to smartwatches have been shown to be up to 30% off compared to indirect calorimetry, which then just further compounds the calorie inaccuracy gap. All of this is just to say that you shouldn't stress about being ultra meticulous on matching your calorie intake to what is calculated in your app, especially if it's coming at the expense of your mental health. Because as we've just

discussed, that calorie goal might be wildly off. Number two, calorie labels on foods and apps are notoriously inaccurate. If we're tracking our calories consumed using an app like MyFitnessPal, or even just reading labels and putting pen to paper the old fashioned way, there's a lot of assumptions being made. The first is that the calories on the label are even accurate. The reality is, food manufacturers are allowed to be legally off by 20%. Food systems like the FDA also don't have a standard formula to determine calorie content.

And there are actually five different approved formulas that manufacturers can use, some with less accuracy than others. This means that manufacturers basically can just pick the results that are most favorable to them, aka the ones with the lowest calories. The problem here is that you might again be thinking that you're eating a perfect 1600 calories, but you could actually be looking at closer to 1920. Again, more than enough to crush results. And whole foods are also not immune to inaccuracies either. Again, more than enough to crush results.

And whole foods are also not immune to inaccuracies either. If you were to Google ground beef calories, you're going to get a number for raw meat. But most of us aren't raw dogging it straight from the pack. And cooking meat denatures the proteins and improves the bioavailability of both the nutrients as well as the calories. So you're actually able to extract up to 25% more calories from cooked meat versus when eaten raw. Blending or grinding certain foods, especially high-fat foods, can also increase their calorie

availability. So with whole nuts for example, since the fat is bound up with indigestible fibers, the calories from about 15% of their fat content doesn't actually get absorbed. But if you were to grind them up into a smoothie or turn them into nut butter or nut flour, the calories available to our body will then increase. And it's not just the calorie availability of the food, it's also about how our body processes those calories as well. Which brings me to the next consideration. Number 3.

Our gut microbiome can impact the calories we get from food. When I say our gut health influences almost every system in our body, I am really not exaggerating. And we have ample evidence that when it comes to our weight, those critters in our gut play a crucial role. Studies have shown that the gut microbiome looks different in thin people than it does in larger-bodied folks. Although there are many bacterial species that may vary, the main difference seems to be in the firmicutes to bacteriodets ratio, also known as the F to B ratio. Larger-bodied folks often have a higher F to B ratio, which is a type of dysbiosis or

gut imbalance related to obesity. So what causes this imbalance? Well, at this point we don't totally know. It could be at least partially inborn since we do know that specific genes and mom's microbiome during pregnancy can influence the colonization of baby's gut. We also know that diet plays a huge role, with research suggesting that guts of folks with diets rich in animal proteins and low in fiber showed evidence of that high F2B ratio associated with obesity. But what does a healthy gut microbiome have to do with calorie counting?

Get ready to have your mind blown. Research suggests that how many calories can be harvested from a given food depends both on the quality of that food and the activity and vitality of the microbes in our gut. Imagine we're in a tug of war for calories, AKA energy with our gut microbes. And while I am like admittedly a very competitive girly, this is one competition we don't want to win. See, ultra processed foods like chips and cookies are very low in fiber.

So instead of making their way to the large intestine where microbes await their feast, they get quickly and efficiently digested and absorbed in the upper GI tract. In other words, we're able to harvest more calories from more heavily refined foods. In contrast, high fiber whole foods take much more work to digest, so they arrive at the large intestine where our microbes are able to harvest or steal some of their energy from us. And there's this really interesting study that looked at this in a heavily controlled lab environment where they tracked every single bite of food going in and the poop that was coming out. And what they found was that those who ate

the high-fiber foods lost on average 218 calories per day. Whereas the low-fiber processed food group lost only half of that. Some people in the high-fiber group lost as many as 400 calories a day and that was just based on the health of their unique microbiome. The greater microbial diversity and vitality, the more healthy bacteria to gobble up those calories before you absorb them. And I just want to note that losing more calories in this tug-of of war to bacteria doesn't actually make us more hungry.

In reality, these fiber-rich foods would actually prolong satiety, so it is really a win-win when it comes to weight loss all around. The bottom line implication for calorie counting here is twofold. One, 100 calories on paper of cookies may not actually be the same as 100 calories on paper of apple. And two, 100 calories to me may not be 100 calories to you. But let's just say for simplicity's sake that we were able to harvest the exact same number of calories from that mixed value meal. There's another issue with strict calorie counting. 4. We just suck at estimating our intake and needs. Studies suggest that dieters tend to underestimate their intake by around 25%. And obviously, depending on the food, how

it's served, how many ingredients the food contains, how much oil was used versus retained, etc. That number could be even more off. But even with this conservative 25% variance, if you tracked your calories to a tee to log 2000 calories on MyFitnessPal, it actually means that you could have ingested closer to 2500. Now if you be meticulously counting calories, I don't want that sentence to stress anyone out, but it just does reiterate the importance of listening to our natural hunger and fullness cues instead of completely relying on external numbers like a calorie goal spit out by our app. The other problem is that we're not great at estimating our own energy needs either.

I discussed the problem with online calorie calculators and formulas earlier, but even if you were to spend the money and do an indirect calorimetry test to determine your precise resting metabolic rate, that number is not going to be stagnant. You aren't going to need a perfect 2,000 calories every day for the rest of your life. For most healthy individuals, resting metabolic rate varies around 3 to 8% each day. And then once you actually start losing weight and your body mass, or more significantly your muscle mass starts to decline, your baseline needs are also going to decline.

In other words, you're going to burn more calories just living your basic life when you were 150 pounds than after a 20 pound weight loss. This is one of the reasons why folks will often hit a frustrating plateau during their weight loss journey. Because what you thought was a calorie deficit may actually have just become your baseline as your body shrinks. And I am not even getting into all the compensatory adaptation mechanisms that your body throws into play, just trying to maintain status quo. And that brings me to number five, the risk of

disordered eating. Even if you were to do calorie counting perfectly, it wouldn't be without psychological risks. Weighing, measuring and tracking every single bite of food you put into your mouth takes up a remarkable amount of mental energy, time and thought. And in many cases, especially when the calorie goal you've set is very different than your body's current needs, it can require a lot of effort to override your body's innate cues. And while calorie counters don't all have EDs and signing up for MyFitnessPal isn't an inevitable path to disordered eating,

it absolutely can be a slippery slope. Research has shown that tracking apps like MyFitnessPal are associated with E-disorder symptomology and may exacerbate symptoms, especially for those already at risk. In fact, one study of 105 eating disorder patients found that 75% used MyFitnessPal and of those users, 73% said that the app contributed to their ED. So if you have a history of disordered eating or feel that you may be at risk, absolutely work with a dietitian to determine if calorie

counting is safe for you. So all of this brings me to the question, should you count calories if your goal is to lose weight? Well first of all I need to point out that research does show that calorie counting can help folks stay consistent with their weight loss goals for short periods of time. There's even evidence that when people start tracking their intake, even before they intentionally apply a calorie deficit, they tend to naturally just kind of create one without any effort, probably because of increased awareness and decreased mindless eating. That said, many practitioners are now acknowledging that a strict

and absolute approach to calorie counting may not be a good long-term solution, simply because of its inaccuracies, its disregard of introspective data, and its potential impact on mental health. At the end of the day, different people and personalities will find success with different weight loss tools. Professionally, I don't think anyone needs to or even should be weighing and tracking every single morsel of food that enters their mouths, especially considering all the variables we just discussed.

But I do think that calorie awareness can be very helpful. So I wanted to share some of my top tips. Number one, spend some time reading and comparing food labels and nutrient listings, whether in grocery stores, restaurants, or cafes. Knowing that the BBQ bacon pizza at Papa John's has 20 more calories per slice than the pepperoni and using that to inform your order will do far less for your weight loss outcomes when compared to simply knowing that ordering pizza every single night over chicken salad may tip the calorie scales.

And it's not just the obvious stuff like that, but reading labels can also help you see patterns with certain surprising ingredients that may be driving up calorie counts. So for example, drink smoothies and parfaits made with syrups, sweetened froyo or granola, bowls with lots of rice or noodle bases, thick or creamy sauces, or any kind of fried or oily toppings can all add a lot of calories even to quote-unquote healthy

foods. You really don't need to know the granular details to have an appreciation that these things might be best enjoyed in moderation. Number two, focus on satiety over just calories. And this is really where my hunger crushin' combo comes into play. Reading labels to learn about the core nutrients in different whole foods can help you better understand which are better sources of protein, fiber,

and healthy fats, AKA the hunger crushin' compounds, and which are more rich sources of naked carbs, aka sugar, and ultra-processed grains. The calories from whole foods are not only processed and harvested differently than ultra-processed foods, as we discussed earlier, but these foods are also more likely to keep you full on fewer calories.

They're often low in energy density and high in nutrient density, Oats are also more likely to keep you full on fewer calories. They're often low in energy density and high in nutrient density, so they give us better satiety bang for our caloric buck. So for example, for 400 calories you could eat a big breakfast bowl made of oats and Greek yogurt and topped with almond butter, flax, chia and berries, or you could have a sweetened coffee drink and crispy cream. The former may keep you full for hours thanks to the volume, protein, fiber and healthy fats while after the latter you might be crashing an hour in and looking for another hit. Thousands of people have had success

simply thinking about those three components when building meals and snacks which has ultimately absolved them from getting into the weeds on how many milliliters of honey ended up in their tea. And that brings me to tip number three. Integrate these practices with interceptive awareness of your hunger and fullness cues and the changes you're seeing on the scale or in the mirror.

So for example, if you have your evening meal and feel very full every single night before bed, it could mean one of two things depending on what is also happening in your body. So if you are gaining or not losing weight, your evening meal or snack might be too large, so that might be time for a portion shift or change-up in choice. But if you are losing weight and managing to stay full, you've probably just chosen a hunger-crushing packed meal, and you can decide if this is a feeling that you like, or if you want to tweak the macros slightly with perhaps more protein or fat and less

fibre. Or if you want to tweak the macros slightly with perhaps more protein or fat and less fiber. On the flip side, if you're always hungry an hour after you have lunch, again, there's two main scenarios to explore. If you're gaining or not losing weight, you likely are not incorporating enough hunger crushing compounds leading to a rebound eating episode later on. But if you're losing too rapidly and are hungry despite having lots of fiber, protein, and healthy fats on board, you might simply just need to eat more. So again, upping the portion size or tweaking the macros can help. What I hope you got out of this episode was

not that all your calorie trackers are BS and you need to apply an even stricter approach or deficit to accommodate their flaws, but rather that combining some calorie and nutrient awareness with a more flexible, adaptable, and intuitive approach may be essential to long-term success. In an ideal world, you work with a dietitian who can help teach you the basics of calorie and nutrient awareness, identify troublesome patterns, and adjust the plan based on the unique data gleaned from your interoceptive experiences and weight loss results. But if you're doing this alone, I hope this gave you some tips on how to make calorie counting more sustainable for you. And that's all I have for you guys today, folks.

Please, if you are not already subscribed, I would love if you would hit that subscribe button and leave me a little comment wherever you're getting your podcast because it really does make my day. But signing off with Science and Sass, I'm Abby Sharp. Thanks for listening.