Unfortunately, not all foods are created equal. Some come with higher calories, while some are relatively forgiving in terms of calories. On top of that, not all serving sizes are equal either!
For example, 100g of cooked rice vs 100g of uncooked rice have entirely different calorie counts as well.
There is no one way to track the weight of your food, but you have to be consistent with it. And more importantly, you have to log in the correct information with the way you track. Personally, I prefer to do everything RAW, mainly because raw food weight has much less to deal with, which excludes seasoning, marination, and so on. When it comes to uncooked rice, it’s even easier to track the uncooked weight to prevent miscalculation from the amount of water absorption. Long story short, it’s always easier to track your foods raw.
Serving Size
Serving sizes shown on the label are always very tricky. Not all serving sizes are made equal either; some serving sizes come with 25g, and another flavor of the same product can be 30g per serving! They vary. Even if they are the same brand, same range of products.
Hence, I personally encourage taking 100g as a benchmark to determine the calories of the food. That being said, there really isn’t any good or bad food just based on its nutrition label. It all depends on the amount of that food we consume.
Is kcal everything?
Certainly not! Calories are the total number of three primary macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fats. We will not dive deep into what they are and what nutritional value they have. However, we want most of our calories to be derived from protein, especially when you are in the fat loss phase, rather than carbs or fats. [This topic is covered under Making Wiser Food Selection]
Protein Weightage of your Food
For example, a protein shake (shown in the image above) that has 105 kcal and 20g of protein. It only has 5.5g of carbs and merely 0.4g of fats. This makes it a solid 10/10 high-protein food! How do we know? 1g of protein has about 4 kcal, and 20g gives us 80 kcal out of the 105. Naturally, this makes a protein shake a very high-protein food.
RED Flag
There are many companies that claim their food to be high protein or attempt to create a protein-rich food, yet they fail to deliver because the weightage of their carbs (or fats) almost always seems to be on par with the calories from protein, or more than protein. For example, a 220kcal "Energy Bar with High Protein" that has
20g of protein [*4 = 80kcal],
11g of fats [*9 = 99kcal], and
10g of carbs [*4 = 40kcal]
... this indirectly turns your "Energy Bar with High Protein" into a fats bar instead of a protein bar.
[Appendix 1] - "Protein Bar"
[Appendix 2] - "Energy Bar"
**Don't be mistaken by most Energy Bars; they are really high in calories, unsatiating, and worst of all, offer little to no nutritional value to your diet.
Here comes the most interesting and heavily overlooked fact about Food Label
Snickers 50% Sugar, indeed they are. Let's skip that, nothing wrong, indeed. But it's not 101 kcal per serving VERSUS 240 kcal per serving. The suggested serving size becomes 2 instead of 1. TWO servings per pack in Snickers 50% Sugar as opposed to just ONE serving in Snickers Original.
[Appendix 3]
Many people fall victim to this - thinking the serving size is much lesser in calories and hence overindulging these. If anything, I hope this can be your primary takeaway from my message today - being ultra-critical of food labels!
Finally
I'd like to wrap up this discussion by sharing one of my all-time favorite protein snacks or main courses of protein - Tuna Flakes in WATER. Not in mayo, chili mayo, or olive oil, please. Those typically contain higher fat/carbs with much less protein than usual.
[Appendix 4]
This is brought to your attention not because we are trying to bash any brands or products. It is all intended to raise awareness regarding food labels. What matters are the numbers/value shown on the packaging.
Not every high-protein food you see on the market is good for you; some may cause you more harm than you think. Hence, eating these long-term will not help your fat loss but stall you. As a trainer, we always hear clients not achieving their desired physique even when they are watching their foods closely. Once we get them reading the labels correctly, everything starts to change.
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