My Top Five....

.....reasons why calorie counting for fat loss does not work.

1. Choice of food matters more than anything. Lets put two meals 1000 calorie meals together. One that is made of grilled chicken and greens and one that is made up of mozzarella sticks and french fries. Logical reasoning will tell you that one 1000 calorie meal is much worse than the other, right? I hope it does.
2. Counting the calories themselves. I bet you you can not tell me how many calories are in each food item, even with charts you'll find lying around or on the Internet. You're probably either overestimating or underestimating. This can result in a difference of up to a couple hundred calories per day.
3. Fat loss vs. weight loss. Yes, some calorie restrictive diets result in weight loss, but a good percentage of that weight loss is hard earned muscle. With a loss in muscles mass comes a drop in metabolism. And with a drop in metabolism comes an even lower calorie number to shoot for for a negative energy balance. Next thing you know you're on a 500 calorie a day diet. No more calories after breakfast and you're miserable.
   
4. The machines are not correct either. Okay, so may be you can not keep an accurate track of how many calories you're taking in per day, but the treadmill must have an accurate number of how many calories you're burning, right? Wrong. Just about every machine will spit out a calories number that is also inaccurate. It could be any where from 10-20% off in either direction. Again resulting in a difference of possibly hundreds of calories.
   
5. All calories are not created equal. Whether calories are coming from fat, protein or carbohydrates, they are all metabolized differently. Proteins and fat are going to have a different effect on your blood sugar than carbohydrates. Plus, the thermic effect of each type of calorie is different. It takes about four times more energy to break down a gram of protein than it does to break down a gram of carbohydrate. So getting in more calories through protein over the course of the day can have a greater positive effect on your metabolism.