Should I count calories or carbs? To lose 15 pounds, which do I keep track of: carbs or calories?… And more of your questions answered here

Shape, May, 2004 by Suzanne Schlosberg

Q I want to lose 10-15 pounds, but I'm confused. Should I be counting fat grams, carbs or calories?

A Count calories. It's your most useful weight-loss tool, although it's not something you need to do forever, says Boston nutrition consultant Heidi Reichenberger, M.S., R.D., a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. There's no reason to count fat grams or carb grams, though. "The bottom line is, the number of calories you eat will determine whether you lose weight, gain weight or stay the same," Reichenberger explains.

Even when you reduce your fat intake, it's still possible to consume way too many calories, Reichenberger notes. For instance, a 44-ounce 7-Eleven Super Big Gulp cola contains no fat but nearly 600 calories! In general, foods high in fat are often high in calories, but some high-fat foods, such as nuts and avocados, are nutritious, satisfying and heart-healthy. You do want to limit your intake of foods high in saturated fats (fatty meats and full-fat dairy products); those are the numbers to keep your eye on. And check food labels for the word hydrogenated, which indicates the presence of very unhealthy trans fats--common in fried foods and processed baked goods.

Despite the popularity of low-carb diets, Reichenberger says, there's no benefit to counting carbohydrates, either. "There aren't many carbs in fried chicken or a greasy cheeseburger, but you could easily go way overboard on calories," Reichenberger points out. Rather than tallying total carbs, focus on limiting empty carbs like soda and cookies and instead loading up on the unprocessed, high-fiber kind, such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

If you have no idea how many calories you're averaging a day--and most people don't--it can be an eye-opening experience to keep track for a week. Write down everything you eat and drink, plus the amounts, and use food labels and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's nutrient database (www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl) to estimate your daily calorie intake. Then, look for easy ways to cut calories here and there, such as choosing a latte made with nonfat milk instead of whole milk (savings: 100 calories).

Still, there is more to weight control than watching calories. You could rack up almost an entire day's worth of calories (for a 145-pound woman) from a Burger King Double Whopper (980) and medium chocolate shake (600), in which case you'd overload your body with artery-clogging saturated fat and still get hungry later in the day. Or, you could fill up on the same number of calories from reasonably sized servings of cereal, milk, fruit, salad, chili, a chicken breast, vegetables and a piece of chocolate--three meals' worth of food and no hunger pangs.

In short, if you watch your portion sizes and eat a wide variety of foods, Reichenberger says, "you shouldn't have to count anything. That just takes the fun out of eating."

Q I gave birth six months ago and was unable to breastfeed. My extra weight has been slow to come off, and friends tell me it's because I didn't breastfeed. Could this be?

A Breastfeeding may help somewhat with postpartum weight loss, but not as much as your friends may think. "We're talking about maybe 4 or 5 pounds," says Joan Meek, M.D., director of general academic pediatrics at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando, Fla., and the breastfeeding coordinator for the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Although nursing women burn 600 or more extra calories a day producing breast milk, research suggests they also have a greater appetite than women who don't nurse, so the weight-loss advantage is not as great as it might seem.

The women who benefit most from this weight-loss advantage are those who nurse their babies exclusively for the first six months and continue breastfeeding, with the inclusion of solid foods, for six months after that. The greatest advantage seems to come between three and six months postpartum, studies suggest. However, some research shows no difference, after one year, between the weights of nursing moms and those who bottle feed.

Don't worry about what your friends say. Your activity level and eating habits make a greater difference in your weight than whether you're breastfeeding, Meek says. Also keep in mind that how much weight you gained during pregnancy affects your ability to lose the extra pounds afterward. The more weight you gained, the tougher it can be to lose.

Q I want to cut down on my sugar intake, so I now eat plain yogurt instead of sweetened. But I noticed on the label that plain yogurt has almost as many sugar grams as some of the fruit-flavored varieties. Why?

A "On a food label, sugar is sugar, whether it's the type that is naturally occurring, as in milk and yogurt, or whether the sugar has been added," says Boston nutrition consultant Heidi Reichenberger, M.S., R.D.

Although sweetened yogurt has more sugar than plain, sometimes the number of grams on the label isn't that much greater because the sweetened-yogurt serving sizes are smaller. For example, a serving of plain lowfat yogurt is typically 8 ounces and contains about 17 grams of sugar. A serving of flavored yogurt is typically 6 ounces and may have 28 grams of sugar, which doesn't sound like that much more than the plain. However, a comparable 8-ounce serving of that same flavored yogurt would contain about 37 grams of sugar--20 grams of it added to the yogurt. Ounce for ounce, the sweetened yogurt has more than twice as much sugar!