A couple of biscuits with coffee or tea are a common staple of many homes and workplaces.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, biscuits on their own don’t make you fat, but if you’re having them by default, out of habit, on top of a diet which is already providing you with enough calories then you will gain fat (or fail to lose fat).
The issue with biscuits is that they’re so easy to munch through without even realising you’re doing it, it’s a quick few hundred cals you won’t even notice you’re having. You only need a deficit of 2-300 cals a day to see fat loss so that’s your potential deficit gone right there. Over the course of a month it’s a whopping 9,688 cals!
So, if you’re goal is fat loss, perhaps it’s worth just being a bit more mindful about those biscuits with your tea/coffee, or if you’re having them then log and count the calories and include them within your daily calorie goal! And if you are trying to cut calories then maybe those biscuits are an ‘easy’ cut to make.. just going for half the amount would save you over 4,500 cals…
Tracking calories is a tool we can use strategically at certain times to accomplish specific goals, whether that’s improved health, sports performance, fat loss, or muscle gain. It can teach us quite a bit about food and nutrition as well, such as learning the energy and macronutrient composition of various foods.
Tracking accurately is a skill though and it’s very common for people to unintentionally and unknowingly under-report or under-track their food intake in general. Small mistakes with tracking can really add up over the days and weeks and can mean the difference between you losing fat or maintaining your weight.
Here are some common mistakes:
Eyeballing portions
Estimating and eyeballing portion sizes can be the difference between being in a calorie deficit or not. Weighing with a food scale in grams or ounces is the most accurate method you can use.
Grazing and mindless bites
Untracked grazing, bites, snacks, sips, and licks still count towards your calories and can really add up. Often , we’re not even aware we’re doing this, so increasing your mindfulness and awareness can be key. Plan out your snacks ahead of time and consider portioning things out in advance into serving containers or buy your snacks prepackaged.
Raw vs Cooked
Food loses and gains water weight when we cook it. For example, rice and pasta “gain” water weight while potatoes, protein sources, and vegetables “lose” water weight when they are cooked. Cooking methods and times affect how much water is gained or lost. The most accurate method is to weigh your food raw – or before you cook it. But what matters the most is that you are consistent with the method you chose and you choose the right calories to log – so check whether the cals listed are “cooked” or”raw” entries.
Generic meal entries
Your homemade spaghetti bolognese will have vastly different calories than many of the generic entries available in your tracking app. Track your meals by either entering each ingredient or (a more efficient way) use the recipe function in the app.
Oils, dressings, condiments etc
Cooking oils, mayonnaise , mustard, ketchup, BBQ sauce, butter, milk in coffee, sauces, preserves and salad dressings are easy to forget. However, they can quickly add up to be a few extra hundred calories. Don’t forget to track the oil you cook with (or swap to a 1 cal oil spray), condiments, milk, and dressings etc.
Not checking the accuracy of entries
Certain tracking apps (like MFP) are notorious for having inaccurate or misleading entries. Sometimes the serving size is incorrect, sometimes the actual calories are out, so if you can double check the entry against the label then do. Also, make sure your serving sizes are accurate in bought items and in your own pre-loaded meals or recipes (we tend to change servings over time so worth revisiting now and then).
Forgetting to log
It’s so easy to forget what we’ve consumed – studies all support this and even trained nutritionists don’t recall everything. The best way to prevent this is to track in advance or as you go along. Before something goes in your mouth just open the app and log it. Don’t wait until the end of the day to log things. Aside from forgetting what you’ve had it’s also too late to make any changes once you’ve eaten it.
We all know the feeling, it’s mid afternoon, we’re a bit peckish but we’re ‘being good’ so don’t want to reach for a biscuit. Instead we grab a couple of slices of toast – nothing wrong with that right? It means we’re still on track with our ‘diet’ and all’s well….
But some days you may not have that will power… sun’s out, so you grab a cornetto out the freezer.. then have just one Jaffa cake… which becomes 2, 3, .. or maybe just one more – so that’s 4 and perhaps a final one… so you finally stop at 5! Now you’re wracked with guilt! How could you be so stupid? You’ve totally ruined your ‘diet’! Why don’t I have any self control you say to yourself?!
Hold on just one second! Perception is a wonderful thing… and it can also be a terrible thing. That toast that seems ‘ok’ may not be that much better. Two slices of sourdough toast with butter is up to 424 cals. That cornetto and 5 Jaffa cakes… a mere 384 cals! So neither is a great choice if you’re trying to stick to a particular calorie goal, but in most cases you’ll view the cornetto/Jaffa cake saga as a total disaster on the diet front, whilst probably overlooking the toast completely.
It pays to be aware of the calories in what you’re eating. That way you can choose with knowledge rather than your preconceived or conditioned ideas about what’s ‘bad’ or ‘good’. Being aware of the calories in different foods empowers you to make that choice and can help remove the guilt. Knowledge is power!
Apparently seed oils are the latest food to demonise. Rapeseed/canola, sunflower, sesame oil etc are apparently toxic, inflammatory and the worst thing you can eat. But does the evidence actually support this?
Some of the fear has a fairly logical origin. For decades, partially hydrogenated oils containing trans fats were widely used in margarines, processed foods and commercial frying. Trans fats genuinely are harmful, particularly for cardiovascular health. However at some point hydrogenated oils = bad morphed into seed oils = bad, but they’re not the same thing.
In addition lots of ‘junk’ foods such as chips, doughnuts, fried fast food, crisps, biscuits and other ultra-processed foods also contain seed oils. People who eat a lot of junk food may have poorer health , junk food often contains seed oils so it must be the seed oils that are bad. In reality these foods are just energy-dense combinations of refined flour, sugar and fat that’s very easy to overeat.
The major scientific warnings against seed oils come from studies tracking commercial fryer oil that has been heated for hours or days at a time (which causes it to breakdown producing potentially toxic by products) . Critics online took these findings and misapplied them to ordinary home cooking. In reality, using fresh seed oil at home for standard cooking, baking, or light frying produces negligible breakdown products and is entirely safe. Regularly eating deep-fried takeaway food is rather different from using some rapeseed oil to cook your stir fry .
There’s also the myth that omega-6 causes inflammation. Human research doesn’t support this; normal consumption of linoleic acid, the main omega-6 in many seed oils, doesn’t increase inflammatory markers. In fact, when unsaturated vegetable oils replace saturated fats, LDL cholesterol generally drops which helps cardiovascular health.
So don’t panic over a teaspoon of seed oil in your dinner or as an ingredient in the food you enjoy. As usual, the boring stuff matters far more: overall diet, fibre, fruit and veg, protein, calorie balance, exercise and sleep.
“I’m being good and choosing the healthy steamed seafood…” 🥗
Restaurant dining can be a bit of a minefield if you’re trying to watch your calories or lose weight. As I’ve said before, we often have a number of preconceived ideas about which the ‘healthier’ option is and equate that with lower calorie. In reality sometimes things aren’t quite as you’d expect.
Another great example of this is T his particular example is from a Thai restaurant . If you were out for dinner you might assume that something like the steamed seafood is the better choice. It sounds healthy doesn’t it? It’s just steamed squid, sea bass and prawns – no rice or noodles. Tamarind duck noodles – which is a crispy duck leg served on a bed of noodles with a tamarind sauce and the choice is obvious isn’t it?
However that’s not the case. The seafood dish comes in at approx 651 calories, while the noodle dish is approx 520 cals. That’s only 69 cals different – but the seafood dish comes without any accompaniment so chances are you’d want something with it – rice, noodles or some veg or something.
Neither is a large amount of calories for a dinner so both can easily be accommodated within a daily calorie goal. However, this is a great example of how food marketing and naming can shape our assumptions. Dishes that sound fresh, wholesome or fish-based are often automatically labelled as ‘healthy’ and therefore assumed to be lower calorie whereas the natural assumption would be that duck and noodles are high calories (and often they are!).
Now if you want the seafood because you like it then definitely go for it, but if you’re choosing it when you’d prefer the noodles then maybe stick to what you like! That’s why checking the calories can be so important and illuminating! Knowledge is power!
