Watching calories without counting them- what's the answer?

So it's January and many people are in the process of trying to shed those extra Christmas pounds, or at least thinking about it. It's the perfect example of what happens when you eat more calories than your body needs. There are numerous articles in the media about different diets, flyers coming in through the door about joining weight loss plans and we're now on the second day of National Obesity Awareness week. Interestingly the results from a survey carried out by Diabetes UK, British Heart Foundation and Tesco were published last week showing that almost two-thirds of people were unaware of how many calories they should be eating to maintain a healthy weight. Barbara Young, Chief Executive of Diabetes UK, was sat on the sofa of BBC Breakfast News highlighting these findings when she was asked  about how you can get people to be aware of their calorie intake without counting calories. That is a very good question and something I've been pondering on. I've asked nutritionists and dietitians in case I had missed something but sadly no one had the solution. So we have a genuine conundrum on our hands!

This issue did provoke some interesting discussion and made us think about what tools are currently out there. Firstly there are food labels at the back or side of pre-packaged products telling people how much energy in kilocalories, often referred to as calories, there are per 100g/ml. Sometimes the calorie content per portion is also provided, e.g. per slice of bread, which is more useful and makes the information tangible to the consumer but sometimes the stated portion might not be the amount that would actually be eaten or drunk. There are also front of pack labels providing information on the amount of energy, total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt contained in the product. This information can also be expressed as a percentage of an adult's daily reference intake, formerly known as guideline daily amounts, and can be combined with red, amber and green colour coding where red means the product is high in total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt and green means low.
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling.aspx

Checking food labels is one method of raising calorie awareness as it offers a bit of a sense check and allows for comparisons between products; however, you can't expect the average person to spend their whole shop checking the label of every product that goes into their basket. This would be very time consuming, not to mention tedious! Then there's the issue of when a meal is prepared from scratch, it's made up of different foods that are cooked using a variety of methods. No one is going to know how many calories they've just rustled up in the kitchen. There are, of course, calorie counter apps available where people can enter individual foods and prepared meals, which is great for motivated people who are consciously losing weight or watching what they eat.  However, for those that are not this may seem a little involved.

Another approach is to focus on the sort of food we should be eating. In the UK we have the eatwell plate, which is a visual representation of the types and proportions of foods we should be eating for a healthy balanced diet.  It shows segments of a plate containing various food groups with fruit and vegetables and starchy carbohydrates dominating the plate and foods high in sugar and fat making up the smallest segment with the intervening  sections consisting of milk and dairy and non-dairy sources of protein i.e. eggs, meat and fish. 
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/eatwell-plate.aspx 




Different countries have their own food guides, such as My Plate in the US. There are also lots of online resources that provide good information on healthy eating but how can this information be translated so people can understand how much they should be eating?

This leads us nicely on to portion size and the question: what is a portion? For fruit and vegetables there is official guidance that a portion equals 80g; that equates to a piece of fruit or two pieces if it's small like a satsuma, about 3 table spoons of vegetables or 150ml of unsweetened fruit or vegetable juice. Packaged items sometimes have the 5-a-day logo telling us what constitutes a portion. This is where formal advice ends and we're left to our own devices in regards to the rest of the diet. My dietitian friends tell me that they use different objects to help people with portion size such as a match box, deck of cards, spoon and even a fist! However, most people are not consulting a dietitian. There are online resources available which have translated government advice into portion sizes using a similar approach, for example, a 30g portion of cereal and a match box of cheese. Although I guess these sizes would depend on the fat content of the cheese or what kind of cereal you are eating; not all cereals are created equal!

Another method is to swap a particular food or drink product for another one that contains less calories, which is the basis of the Change4Life campaign that aims to get families to eat more healthily and to be more active. Last week saw the launch of the Sugar Swaps campaign that provides practical tips on swapping sugary drinks, snacks, breakfasts and puddings for lower calorie/healthier versions. This is one way to help reduce people's energy intake without counting calories but all of these activities require some kind of motivation for people to want to think about what they are eating and seek out relevant resources. 
http://www.nhs.uk/change4life/Pages/change-for-life.aspx

Realistically people have busy lives; they may be coming home late from work, dashing around the supermarket with children in tow or fitting in the online shop around family responsibilities and, of course, more concerned about money and how they can feed themselves and/or their family whilst keeping a roof over their head. The need to think about calories is not necessarily at the forefront of people's minds and what people choose to eat is driven by a number of factors.

I seem to be raising more questions than answers but sometimes it's just good to have the conversation. If anyone has the answer, please feel free to share!