To literally count every single calorie you ingest for the rest of your life could very well land you in the loony bin. Is counting calories even necessary to lose weight or is it simply the price that must be paid for a hot body? It’s quite the conundrum, isn’t it? But maybe there’s a better way to keep track of your food intake without becoming a number-crunching madman or madwoman.

While some popular weight loss programs tout the benefits of counting and weighing every food product that comes within arm’s reach, others recommend you simply balance energy intake versus energy output or count portions rather than calories.

An alternative to calorie counting is to consider that a portion of food is roughly equal to the size of the palm of your hand. A portion of protein or carbohydrates will be between 100 and 150 calories. One chicken breast is a portion of protein and a medium-sized baked potato is a portion of carbs.

Denying altogether that calories matter is silly. They do matter. If a diet tells you that you can eat all you want and still lose weight, they’re full of baloney. Anything that sounds like work – counting calories, eating less, exercising more – tends to scare people away.

But the law of calorie balance is an unbreakable certainty of physics. Energy in versus energy out decides whether you will gain, lose or maintain your weight. All the calorie counting in the world won’t change that fact. The law of calorie balance says: To maintain your weight, you must consume the same number of calories you burn. To gain weight, you must consume more calories than you burn. To lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn.

However, only counting portions can leave you taking in way more (or fewer) calories than you should. You need a happy medium between the two. How about this: take the next four weeks to create a menu plan to use as a daily guide. You’ll get an idea of the kinds of foods you eat and how many calories they have. Use this menu as a template and you’ll be able to approximate within a tolerable margin of error how many calories you’re taking in. Count ‘em once and you’re good to go. If you get bored with the same foods, create more menus.

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