Do Calorie Counters Work?

I wear one often when I workout.  I've always assumed as an article of faith that they were inaccurate. But who cares?  I don't care if my scale is five pounds heavy or five pounds light as long as it is consistently five pounds heavy or five pounds light.  Similarly, I think calorie counters measure effort and work, regardless of what that work is.  

Calories burned is an unimportant statistic.  But as the Journal article points out, they are good for motivation, citing a three-month study of 57 people trying to lose weight that was published in the journal Obesity in 2007.  The study found that people who used the calorie counter with diet and exercising counseling lost 13.6 pounds, compared with only nine pounds for a control group who received only the counseling.

These mind games we all play with ourselves for motivation matter. Use any weapon you can find in your arsenal to get you to your most motivated place.  For many of us, this includes inaccurate calorie counters.